Dwalin and the Pearl
by Saraleee
Summary: Before going on the Quest for Erebor, Thorin's loyal lieutenant Dwalin rescues a dwarf lady. She's beautiful, difficult, and trouble with a capital T, but somehow he can't get her off his mind. (This story was formerly titled "The Adventures of Dwalin the Dwarf." What can I say? I'm lousy at titles.)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"You will do this, Dwalin," said Aunt Nott firmly. She glared at me, her white eyebrows bristling.

When Aunt Nott glares at you, and you are her least-favorite nephew (which I was, at that particular moment in time), it's certain you'll soon find yourself doing whatever she wants. No ifs, ands or buts. So I held my tongue and nodded.

Aunt Nott is the head of our household in the Blue Mountains. It's a big household, full to bursting with proud sons, grandsons, nephews and cousins of the House of Durin, and she rules us all with an iron skillet and a fist that is at least as hard. I'll tell you a secret: Dwarves may bow to their king, but we all know where the real power lies under the mountain.

I didn't want to leave the Blue Mountains. I was happy in Aunt Nott's bachelor quarters, drinking with my cousins and pursuing some quiet amusements in the off hours. Unfortunately, our most recent amusement had not been quiet enough. Someone had complained about it to Aunt Nott, and although several participants had gotten off lightly (or eluded capture by the enraged dwarves who were the butt of that particular joke), she decided to make an example of me.

"A considerable quantity of gold was stolen from our treasury in Dunland. My intelligence sources say the thieves plan to move it north through Eriador to Bree. You will intercept the caravan and retrieve our gold, then bring it to me at Bree."

There was no sense in asking how Aunt Nott knew all this. She had her ways. The only mystery was how the gold had come to be stolen in the first place. However, since it wasn't my gold and (considering Aunt Nott's mood) wouldn't ever be my gold, I wasn't even tempted to ask.

"If they're going to Bree, why not let them bring it all the way, and reclaim it there?" It was a sensible question, I thought. Why risk a pitched battle on the caravan route, when a little subtle skullduggery in town would get us the gold with less trouble? In that case, of course, I would be off the hook. I'm not known for my stealthy qualities.

Aunt Nott brought her fist down on the solid oak table with a crash. "Because I don't want any trouble with Men! The last thing I want is rumors of dwarven gold floating around Bree. Get the treasure back before it gets to a town where the walls have ears and tongues run on wheels."

"There will still be rumors, if it's known that a caravan has set out—"

"Just do it, Dwalin."

So that's how I ended up a few days later in the wilds of Dunland, a Mahal-forsaken place if ever there was one, freezing my hindquarters off and skulking behind a large boulder as a caravan with stolen gold was about to pass by. If you've never been there, Dunland is a rock-strewn and mostly uninhabited plain covered with rough dun-colored grass, pale and yellow-brown as far as the eye can see. Get it? Dun. Land. Other than the grass, the only vegetation is a species of thorn bush with wicked, inch-long thorns. Not exactly the vacation spot of the Valar.

The caravan hove into view, led by two Men on horseback. Behind them, a pair of oxen pulled a closed cart like a windowless wooden box set on wheels. Then came three pack-mules followed by a half dozen shambling figures, laden as heavily as the animals.

The pack train was escorted by an armed guard, a Dunlending with an evil squint and several well-polished swords thrust into his waist sash. A weakness, I was happy to note—it takes a lot of vanity or carelessness to carry swords around unsheathed. While his weapons were too shiny-looking for negligence, it seemed very likely that here was a vain man. Vain men are usually too sure of their own abilities, which means they aren't on the alert for danger. That meant Plan A: Take him by surprise.

I gave a low whistle, like a thrush—well, like a bird, anyway—to let the team know that the fun was about to begin.

My team was hiding behind the rocks that reared up on either side of the caravan route. The road ran through a natural arrangement of boulders that formed a kind of gully—not high enough to constitute a canyon, you understand, but enough to serve as a trap for an unwary collection of mules and carts.

I was reasonably certain that the team I'd assembled would work well together, although I had some doubts about the new dwarf. He'd been brought in at the last moment upon recommendation from another cousin, and since there wasn't anyone else available in the rough bar where I'd done my recruiting, I'd had to gamble that Nori would be motivated by the promise of the gold I'd offered in payment, and not by the hope of making off with the entire treasure. His fingers twitched a little too much at the mention of gold. Too late now.

Showtime.

I poured a little ale down my leather jerkin (making sure to avoid the Warg pelt across my shoulders, because the stink would be nearly impossible to get out of the fur later on) and urged my pony out into the caravan's path, singing a lively tune about the Man in the Moon. My singing voice is known far and wide amongst the dwarves, but not always appreciated.

The caravan came to a ragged halt at the narrowest point between the boulders, right where we wanted them.

I waved the jug of ale in my hand. "What ho, weary travelers! Care for a drink or two to refresh yourselves along the way? I have ale to share and would be glad of the company."

The squint-eyed Dunlending urged his horse forward. Like most of his people, he was a swarthy, ill-favored Man, not much taller than a dwarf, but tough and wiry where dwarves are stocky and strong.

He laid his hand on the hilt of the bigger of the two swords thrust through his waistband. "Get out of the way, you drunkard," he growled. "We have no time for your foolishness."

I pulled a sad, drunken face, and raised the jug high. "Are you sure, laddie? Well, if you won't drink with us, you can FIGHT!"

I dashed the jug to the ground. Not a full jug—don't worry, I wouldn't waste good ale.

That was the signal for the others to come pouring out of the hills, their weapons drawn. They did, right on cue. Meanwhile, I drew my axe and cut down the Dunlending guard where he stood. He never even managed to draw his shiny and impressive weapon. Poor fellow.

It was a vicious little fight. Howls and shrieks erupted everywhere. Nori, the new dwarf, did for one of the horsemen, and the other one was dispatched somewhere along the line. I didn't see that one go down, but he was dead enough when Nori started going through his pockets.

It wasn't strictly correct procedure on Nori's part, but I didn't want to discourage a little free enterprise—and after all, the important bit was the gold belonging to Aunt Nott, which was probably in the closed cart being pulled by the oxen. The startled beasts had somehow gotten twisted around in their harnesses and were lowing in distress. Riki, who was good with animals and doctored our ponies when they needed it, was seeing to them, so I went to investigate the cart. Nori came too, which probably meant that the pickings had been slim on the bodies of the ringleaders.

"Crowbar," I ordered, holding out my hand. Nori produced one instantly, which raised my opinion of him. I fitted it into the padlock on the door, broke the lock, then swung open the door.

A dark figure sprang out at me, hissing like a cat. Something sharp catapulted toward my nose and I slapped it aside. With a sob and a clank of chains, my attacker fell against the inside of the cart.

A woman.

I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the dim interior. A great swath of tangled golden hair cascaded over her face and shoulders, and lower down, a luscious female form was covered only by a silky pink gown. It looked like some sort of underwear. Now, what I don't know about women could fill an encyclopedia, but even so, that dress didn't look like the most practical outfit for traveling across a thorn-filled wasteland in early Spring.

Across her lap lay the reason for the clanking sound—her wrists were clamped in irons, and the chains from each wrist were joined in front of her at a larger ring, from which a third chain led to the iron strongbox in the center of the cart. In one fist she held a large, pointed splinter of wood like a dagger.

Then she twitched her hair out of her face and rose up on her knees to glare at me, and I finally got a good look at her. She was a dwarf-woman. A beauty, too, or she would have been, if she hadn't been snarling and snapping those pearly white teeth at me. Blue eyes blazing, full pink lips drawn back, the golden fringe of her beard framing a piquant chin… She was breathing hard, as I could tell from the rise and fall of her truly impressive bosom. I stared at her, my mouth open.

"Don't come any closer," she said in a deadly voice, holding the makeshift wooden dagger in front of her. There were flecks of blood on her fingers, and a ragged tear in one of the planks in the floor of the cart. She must have ruined her nails making that miserable weapon. Resourceful, though—I had to give her that.

"What the hell?" I asked, calmly and sensibly.

"It's a woman," said Riki, who'd come over to see what was going on.

Nori muscled between us to get a better look. He was talking fast. "Chained. A prisoner. Valuable. Planned to sell her, I bet. Good looking. She'd fetch a good price. Lots of gold."

_Sell_ her? Sell her? Fury swept over me, fury at the vile despicable monsters who kidnapped and enslaved helpless people. I glared at Nori. He took several steps back.

"Not me," he stuttered. "Not me. Terrible thing. Never would. Not me, no. Gold, yes. People, no."

I turned back to the woman, who was growling deep in her throat and clutching her big pointy splinter. "We're not interested in you. You're free to go. We just want what's in that iron box there."

You'd have thought she would have been relieved. You'd have thought wrong.

Her blue eyes narrowed. "In case you hadn't noticed—" she spat out, shaking her chained wrists at me. Apparently she'd gotten over her fright, because here she was making imperious demands. Mahal, I hate a demanding woman. Too many of them in my life already—by which I mean Aunt Nott, who got me into this mess.

"Right. Well," I looked at the crowbar in my hand. No way to get the irons off her wrists with that, because they fit too tightly. I couldn't use it to pry apart the individual small links of the chain, either—they were too small. The ring that connected the chains from each of her wrist-irons to the chain leading to the strong box was about as big around as my clenched fist. Too big to use the crowbar on.

But the ring was not soldered, just a hoop of forged iron bent so that the ends touched. So I got a good grip on the ring with both hands, took a deep breath, and pulled as hard as I could. The ring reluctantly gave and the gap between the two iron ends drew apart. It was enough space to slide the links free.

"There you go," I muttered, rubbing my fingers. All that pulling and tugging had left them sore as hell. Bending iron is a great party trick, but it's not something you want to do every day.

The woman may have been staring at me, I don't know. I wasn't looking at her. All I could see out of the corner of my eye was that waterfall of golden hair, as still as if frozen, and the rise and fall of her breasts.

Nori nodded. "Good. Very good. Can you do that trick again? Open the strong box?"

"I don't think so," I said honestly. "Let's take a look. Get out of the cart, lass."

"I can't." The woman sat back and brought her legs around, using both hands to hold that flimsy pink dress down around her calves. Her small feet were decked in dainty embroidered slippers, and above the slippers were leg-irons, hobbling her.

I raised my eyebrows. "Somebody sure didn't want you to wander off." That earned me an evil glare, and I sighed. "Look, I don't care what they wanted with you. I've got a job to do. Just get out of my way."

"Delighted," she snapped, and scooted forward to swing her legs out of the cart. She slipped down to stand on her feet, and her legs buckled. With a cry, she began to topple over.

I caught her, cursing myself for a fool. Iron shackles were hell on the circulation—they always seemed to cut off the blood flow, no matter where they lay against your flesh. She probably had been wearing these irons for some time, making it hard to stand. A right burden she would be to us, at least until we got her free of the ironmongery, and then she'd probably be a burden in all sorts of new ways. But here she was, helpless and woefully underdressed, and as far as I could tell there was no getting rid of her until at least Bree. We were stuck with each other.

Her skin was cold as marble and as pale; puckered with gooseflesh everywhere I touched. I lifted her up in both arms and held her against my chest. Just to warm her up. There was no way I could sling her over my shoulder. My axes, Grasper and Keeper, still rode in their harness on my back, and it seemed prudent to keep them out of her reach.

A short distance away, Riki was brushing his hands together after sorting out the oxen. I jerked my head at him to bring him to my side. "Find me somewhere to set her down."

He nodded and trotted off.

The woman was shivering in my arms. She'd pressed her face against my shoulder, getting a face-full of Warg hair, which isn't the softest fur around even if it is warm and waterproof. I didn't mind carrying her, because she wasn't very heavy. But her body was soft and curvy, and my fingers sank into that softness in a strange and disturbing way.

That was when I heard some of my other dwarves calling my name over the continuing shrieks and cries from the native bearers walking in the caravan.

Riki came jogging back. "Dwalin, you've got to see this. They're all chained together."

Still carrying the woman, I followed him over to the bearers who had made up part of the caravan. Nori loped alongside me, casting anxious glances back at the closed cart. I don't know why he bothered; we were in the middle of nowhere. Chances were the gold would be safe for a moment or two.

Damned if Riki wasn't right. A half-dozen of them, all chained together like animals with heavy packs on their backs. Two were Dunlendings but the rest were dwarves. I swore. "Mahal furku, what is this?"

Nori rushed forward with a shout. "Ori!"

"What's an Ori?" I growled.

* * *

_Note: "Mahal" is the dwarf term for "God." Also, "Mahal furku" is a typical dwarf curse._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Brother," Nori flung the word over his shoulder as he hurried over to a grubby little dwarf. He shook his head disapprovingly and began unthreading the chain that bound them all together by passing through the ring on a leather belt they each wore. "Crazy kid. Shouldn't leave home. Where's Dori?"

The brother, who looked a mere stripling, turned red in the face and pushed his brother's hands away. "I don't need your help, Nori. I could have gotten myself free. I was – I was biding my time to make a run for it."

Curse these cursed bastards, they couldn't be content with just stealing some gold. They had to start into the slaving business, too. It was a good thing they were dead, because I was tempted to kill them all over again.

"Let him help you, lad," I ordered. "Nobody enslaves a dwarf."

The weedy youngster glared at me. "I'm not a slave, I'm a worker! I signed a contract, see?" He plunged his hand into a pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers, a broken quill pen, and a small book. He selected one of the documents and waved it at me.

I raised a skeptical eyebrow. What with my arms being full of woman, I couldn't take a look at the contract. I didn't need to. Promises on paper are only as good as the people who sign their names to them, and there was nothing good about these men. Honest merchants don't put chains on the hired help. Clearly, Nori's little brother should have stayed at home.

The lad rounded upon his brother. "And I could so get free any time I wanted, Nori. I'm not as dumb as you think. See?" He produced a small, needle-like tool from another pocket.

The woman jerked her head up from my shoulder. "What's that?" she asked Ori.

"Nori's lock-pick," said the lad.

"Not mine," Nori said quickly. "Never saw it before. Nope."

"Can you use it to undo these shackles?" She moved her legs, which almost made me drop her. I growled. Carrying her wasn't so bad, but I couldn't hold her if she wriggled around.

"I don't know how to use it," Ori confessed with a blush. He looked at her, all pink and gold, and then at me. "Are you his wife?"

Shock almost made me drop her again. She hung on tight, locking her arms around my neck, pressing so hard against me that I could smell the scent of her flesh, spicy and musky. I spluttered, "No, she's not!"

She growled at me, then smiled at the lad. "Certainly not, Ori—it is Ori, isn't it? It's just that I'm chained and can't move or stand without help. If you could unlock the fetters, I wouldn't need to be carried."

"Well—" Ori said doubtfully.

Impatiently, she stuck out one hand for the lock pick. "Give it to me."

He did. Bossiness seemed to work for her, I reflected sourly. She probably had had a lot of practice at it.

Riki bustled up with a blanket. "Best I could do on short notice, Dwalin."

"Fine. Spread it out over there. Nori, unshackle her." I set her down on the blanket, and Nori knelt in front of her to work on the padlock securing her ankles. I kept an eye on him, just to make sure he didn't try anything funny. Not that there was anything he could have done, but it seemed safer to stick close.

I shouted a few orders to the other members of the team. The slaves (or employees with contracts, or however they saw themselves) had to be released and fed, their packs gone through, the dead bodies moved off the road, and some sort of arrangements for the night had to be made.

"Are you Dwalin? Dwalin son of Fundin? I've read about you," young Ori said excitedly.

"_Read_ about me?" I echoed. "Who the hell would write about me?"

"The history of the Battle of Azanulbizar, written in the year T.A. 2933 by the scholar Balder of the House of Durin, is generally held to be the most accurate report of that battle to date," Ori said in a lecturing tone. "Is it true that—"

"Yeah, yeah, if Balder wrote it, it's Mahal's honest truth," I said, cutting him short. These scholars will talk your ear off if you give them a chance, and your only hope is to shut them up as quickly as possible.

Now that Ori had reminded me, I guess someone had written about me. Balder pestered me for months about his history—if he wasn't telling me about the heroic deeds of some dwarf or other at that hellish battle, he was asking me what deeds I'd done. Damned if I can remember much except the fact that I'd lived through it, which was probably a mistake anyway. But I'd been young, and hadn't had sense enough to die heroically when I had the chance.

The woman was looking at me thoughtfully. "So you're Dwalin."

I couldn't think of a snappy comeback to that one, so I didn't even try. By that time, Nori had managed to free the woman's legs and was working on one wrist. Her ankles were red and raw from the shackles. Seeing the wounds, Riki had clucked his tongue and gone off to find some kind of liniment. It might be meant for animals, but it was the best we had to offer. Too bad we didn't have my cousin Oin the physician with us, but he hardly ever left the Blue Mountains.

The two non-dwarf bearers in the caravan turned out to be Dunlendings who just wanted to return to their homes, so we gave them water and a small amount of food before they left. Riki and some of the others had sorted out the packs and other valuables, and had managed to unearth a heavy woolen robe for the woman to wear. No decent boots, though. Her feet were too small.

The eager young Ori had finally given up on getting me to talk history with him, and had begun to watch his older brother Nori manipulate the lock pick. Evidently we had a master thief in our midst. I didn't know whether to be happy about that or not.

"Are you sure you aren't married to Dwalin, ma'am?" Ori asked her. "You go together so well, you know—like, he's Dvalin and you're the sun."

I didn't much like the sound of this conversation. "What's that, now?"

But the woman didn't seem to mind. She laughed and patted Ori's arm, which made the chain on her still-shackled wrist jingle a bit. "Have you been drinking poetic mead, Ori? That's quite an imagination you've got there. But no, Dwalin and I are not married, we're not going to get married, and I certainly refuse to be the sun. At least not in that particular story."

"But your hair is golden like the sun," the youngster said. "And you looked like—"

"Ah ha ha ha ha ha," she interrupted him. She bared her teeth in a ferocious grin. "No."

"Oh." Ori looked abashed.

I had a feeling it was going to be a long trip to Bree.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In case you didn't know, the story that young Ori was babbling on about was about was an old wheeze about the ancient dwarven rune master Dvalin.

My mother named me after him, and never had a name been more inaccurately bestowed on a hapless baby dwarf. I'm no wise scholar. In fact, I hardly ever think, if I can help it. Keeps things simple.

Anyway, Dvalin was supposed to have been so wise and powerful that the very sun in the sky was his toy, his lover, his plaything. Something like that. But judging from the dwarf woman's expression, this notion did not amuse. Just as well, because I wouldn't have had the time to indulge her. I had a shipment of dwarven gold to get to Bree, and the remainder of the slaver's caravan to deal with.

Of the six people who had been carrying packs, the two Dunlendings had cleared out. That left me with four ragged-looking dwarves to deal with. Well, Nori had taken his wet-behind-the-ears younger brother under his wing. So, three ragged dwarves.

Riki came up to me, looking anxious. "Dwalin, I'm concerned about one of the oxen. It seems like his right front hock was badly scraped when they got all tangled up during the fight, and the poor thing is favoring it. I'm not sure if he'll make it to Bree unless he rests."

I told Riki to see what he could do about the animals, and then went over to the three dwarves that were left. One had a goofy-looking smile, the second was enormously fat, and the third had the rusting remnants of an axe embedded in his forehead. They all looked a bit warily at me.

"Well, you lot are free to go," I told them.

"What about our pay?" the goofy-looking one asked. He was wearing the oddest headgear I'd ever seen, a squashy felt thing with ear-flaps that he wore half-raised, making it look like a vulture had perched on his noggin. "And the rest of the trip? We're working our way to Bree, where work is easy, the ladies are lovely—"

"And food is plentiful," added the fat one. He had an enormous ginger beard, longer even than Gloin's, braided into a thick semi-circle that hung down over his huge paunch. In his hand, he gripped an enormous soup ladle.

The one with the axe in his head grunted, and babbled a few words in what sounded like ancient Khuzdul.

Vulture Hat pointed at Axe-Head. "Aye. What he said."

"Mind translating that for me?"

"We signed contracts." With this, the one with the hat produced three pieces of paper, and proudly displayed their marks made on the bottom of each—two "x"es and a scribble that looked like an axe dripping blood.

I massaged my forehead. "Right. Wait here."

Things had gone fairly well up until that point: Gold recovered, villains dispatched, and two rescues carried out (if one counted the woman and Nori's naïve younger brother). I just hadn't expected to have a lame draft animal and three extra dwarves that I couldn't get rid of. Of course I knew the drill when these things happen: Commander's Intent. No plan, however good, can be expected to survive contact with the enemy. Stuff happens, and stuff had. My job now was to do whatever I needed to do, to carry out Aunt Nott's intent: Get the gold to Bree.

I wandered over to the blanket where Nori was just slipping the lock pick into his pocket. Ori was talking to the woman, who I was glad to see had put on the heavy robe that had been found for her. However, it wasn't enough to make her any less of a distraction for the men. She was still beautiful, and apparently had a talent for setting people at their ease. Ori was smiling and even Nori looked less shifty than normal. Here was another unexpected problem: How to deal with a woman in our midst?

She looked up. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Everything's fine." I turned to Ori. "Let me look at your contract."

Obligingly, he pulled the document out of his pocket and handed it to me. I frowned over it for a while—mostly nonsense clauses, as far as I could tell, but scribbled over with changes and emendations written in the same ink as young Ori's signature. Those bastards must have laughed up their sleeves at his careful alterations, because the odds were, they'd had no intention of honoring anything.

I walked back to the goofy-looking trio, and spoke to Vulture Hat. "Let's see one of those contracts."

As he handed it over, I heard soft, halting footsteps behind me, and the woman said in a bossy tone, "What is this?"

I ignored her and frowned at the two contracts, comparing them. She should have been resting, not swanning around trying to take charge of things. After all, she'd just spent a day or two in a closed wooden box, half-naked and loaded down with irons. I shook my head. But, was she resting? Nooo, here she was, straight-backed, chin high, like a general surveying the troops. Never mind that she still had her hair hanging loose down her back and was wearing a borrowed old robe and a pair of house slippers, she looked regal.

I ignored her some more.

Vulture Hat said, "Begging your pardon, my lady, but we're working our way north by way of Bree. My brother, my cousin and me were hired yesterday. Just to carry loads, you understand. We had no idea you were a prisoner in that there cart."

"And what is your name, my good fellow?" She sounded all sweet and superior. Women. Who can understand them?

He took off his ridiculous hat and actually bowed. "I'm Bofur, my lady, dwarf of all trades, and this is my brother Bombur—" The fat ginger-haired dwarf swept the cooking-ladle across his vast belly and bowed with surprising grace.

Bofur the vulture-hatted then waved a hand at the third dwarf. "And that is my cousin Bifur. He doesn't say too much. The axe in his head, you know."

Bifur grunted, and damned if he didn't wiggle his fingers in the dwarven sign language of _iglishmek_. All dwarves can do _iglishmek_. With all the noise and hammering that goes on in most smithies, it's easier to make a sign with the hands than it is to shout. And most dwarves do some smithing, even if it's only to keep in shape, so there's always a hammer clanging on an anvil somewhere within earshot. The gist of his comment was, "Pretty woman."

At that, she laughed like an indulgent queen. I snorted impatiently, and turned my attention back to the contracts, because all these airs and graces were getting us exactly nowhere. Someone had to do the work while they were chewing the fat.

"And you, my lady?" Bofur was still laying on the charm. "Who do we have the honor of addressing?"

"I'm Var," she said, and inclined her head graciously toward each of the three in turn. "A pleasure to meet you, Bofur, Bombur, and Bifur."

Everybody was so damned pleased to meet everybody else. I interrupted the pleasantries. "There's nothing in here that says you need to stay with the caravan after the unexpected demise of your employers."

"Let me see that," quoth the Lady Var, even bossier than before. She snatched the contracts from my hand, and looked them over. She smiled at Bifur, Bofur and Bombur. "I'm sure we can work something out."

"Hey!" I'm a reasonable man, but this was still my operation. Someone appeared to have forgotten that.

She laid one hand gently on my arm and gazed up at me, blue eyes wide. "I'd really appreciate it if you would have a little conversation with me, my lord Dwalin. Is it all right if we sit down on the blanket that Riki was kind enough to find me? I'm feeling a trifle light-headed."

This was said with just a tiny tremble, just a little flutter of weakness, in her voice. The three dwarves who were soon to become part of our group watched her with anxious concern. What could I do? I glared at her, and led her slowly back to the blanket.

"It's Dwalin," I told her. "Not my lord, or any other foolishness. Just Dwalin."

She sat down carefully, and motioned me down beside her. "Fine, but it's always helpful to establish your authority from the beginning. You want to make sure those three will see you as their leader, and nothing does that quicker than a title."

"Yeah. Thanks for that. If I want any more advice, I'll know who to ask." I'd knelt at her side to talk to her, and now I started to get up.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me down again. This time we were nose to nose. She talked fast, her voice low and hard. "Don't be a fool. First off, you still need those three to help carry the goods, and they could be useful in a fight if we run into any bandits—or, Mahal forbid, orcs. And second, how long do you think those poor dwarves would last on their own?"

The truth was, they might have lasted just as long without us as with us—you never know what's going to happen in an ambush. And I wasn't concerned about any of the other goods that were being transported in the caravan, just Aunt Nott's gold.

I searched her face, lovely and heart-shaped and full of concern. Her big blue eyes sparkled with lively intelligence and a fair amount of shrewd calculation. The sleeve of her robe had slid back from her hand, which was still laid on my forearm, and I could see the rawness where the iron shackle had been. She had a point—sometimes things don't turn out as you expect, and, Mahal knew, this woman didn't look like the kind who'd have expected to find herself sold into slavery. But she almost was.

I nodded. "Very well. We'll do it your way. For now."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

We'd gotten everything moved to a hollow in the leeward side of the rocks just as evening fell. The dwarf woman Var had set the three new dwarves, her protégées Bofur, Bifur and Bombur, to work gathering wood and cooking dinner. Riki had doctored the lame ox as best he could, and fed the animals.

I'd assigned a pair of dwarves for each watch throughout the night. Riki would take first watch with Nori. Then the fat one—Bombur was his name—would be on second watch, paired with dour, trustworthy Zigur. I'd be taking the third watch with Bofur. Two of the others would be taking the watch after us, and so on. It seemed best to mix the dwarves I trusted with the ones I didn't know yet.

Over Bombur's fairly tasty stew, I learned that the trio had been miners before a cave-in had filled them with the desire to seek new careers. Apparently they were hoping to find a less potentially fatal form of employment. Not a bad idea, except that their new goal was to join the Army of the Iron Hills. I couldn't say as I'd found soldiering to be entirely risk-free, but hated to dampen their enthusiasm so I just wished them good luck.

Their first step toward a new life had been to sign on to carry goods for a pair of unsavory Dunlendings. Of course, that hadn't turned out the way they'd expected.

"None of us had any idea what those Dunlending bastards—begging your pardon, my lady—were up to," Bofur was saying, for about the fiftieth time.

"It's just Var," she said coolly. She looked calm enough, but I got the feeling that this conversation was turning in an uncomfortable direction. "And you don't need to worry about your language, Bofur."

If it had been me, I would have cut off this line of questioning double-quick. After all, she'd just been kidnapped and put through a harrowing few days, and it might be a bit soon to relive that experience. But Var hadn't put her foot down, and it was her call, so I decided not to get involved.

"How did you end up their prisoner?" Ori said. I could see him patting his pockets, as if looking for something to take notes with. "I wouldn't have thought—"

Var's face turned deathly pale, ashy-colored even in the firelight. It was time for me to step in, because this was not going well. We were still in a dangerous part of the world, and we were by no means out of trouble yet. She needed to hold together until we got to Bree.

I said quickly, "It doesn't matter, because it's over now. We're going to get some sleep, and start for Bree tomorrow. Ori, your turn to clean up."

But it was too late. Var had recovered her composure and was smiling at Ori. "Oh, I don't mind. It's natural for him to be curious. I was staying in an inn, The Leaping Stag, when they, um, when they burst in and killed my—"

That's when it hit her. She clapped one hand over her mouth and doubled over. Her sobs sounded like they were being wrenched from deep inside her.

"You little fool," I growled at Ori. I grabbed the small bottle of Aunt Nott's Mead I kept in my kit for emergencies and leapt to Var's side. I uncorked the bottle. "Here, drink this."

Aunt Nott's Mead is pungent stuff. It smells like nothing on Middle-earth, and one good mouthful will knock a strong dwarf flat. Var took a deep sobbing breath as I held the bottle to her lips, and reared back coughing. "Mahal, what is that?"

Tears were streaming from her eyes—a not untypical reaction to Aunt Nott's special brew—and she glared at me, more infuriated than distressed. I took the bottle away. "Feel better now?"

"I am perfectly fine," she said, coughing and wiping her face. "There was no need for concern." Of course that was a lie, but not one I was going to challenge her on. There would be time enough later on for healing. At least, that was how it worked for me. I nodded and stood up, relieved.

Nori, Bombur, and Bofur gathered around her, offering comfort. Farther away, Bifur was grunting softly to himself and waving his hands around, patting the air in soothing strokes.

Ori's eyes were wide with misery. I gripped him by the shoulder. "It's okay. You didn't know. Now get to the cleaning up."

"I'm sorry," he said, breaking into tears.

"You didn't know," I said again. I took a deep breath. "Just don't expect people to talk about the bad stuff when it's fresh in their minds."

"When is it all right to ask?"

I shrugged. "Sometimes, never." At that point, I set him to work, so I could avoid any more questions from our young scholar. What do I know, anyway?

The night settled in. I woke easily when Zigur shook me for third watch, and found that Bofur was already up, smoking a pipe filled with some evil-smelling weed. There wasn't much to do, so we eventually fell into conversation.

"So, you think we're making a mistake, enlisting in the Army?" Bofur asked.

I shrugged. "Soldiers don't have much of a home life."

"Neither do miners," he pointed out. "I'll admit, though, that we hadn't reckoned on being out in the sun so much. We miners are more comfortable underground, where the light's not so bright."

"Well, if the Iron Hills Army marches against the goblins, you'll have the pleasure of fighting them in the dark." I shuddered. Goblins. I hate those filthy creatures.

He smiled that goofy smile of his. "Well, we'll find something worth doing. Cheer up. Maybe we'll all be doing it together."

"Yeah," I said. "That's a cheery thought, all right."

We were quiet for a while after that. The night was undisturbed, and the sky was full of stars, diamond-spangled as the Gimligund deep in the Blue Mountains. For those of you who have never seen this great wonder, it's a giant cavern glowing with crystals. My all-time favorite place. Nothing can equal it anywhere on Middle-earth, but a starry night sky comes close.

Then the woman, Var, began to whimper and moan. Her hands twitched and her feet kicked inside the blanket she was rolled in. She said, "No."

I motioned to Bofur to keep watch, and went over to her. She was asleep, but twitching and muttering. I leaned over to touch her shoulder, but all of a sudden she gasped, thrashed, and sat bolt upright, eyes wide and mouth open. Quickly I clamped one hand over her mouth and wrapped one arm tight around her shoulders.

She came awake, disoriented, fighting me hard and trying to bite. I was expecting it so I just held on tight, saying, "Calm down! It's me. It's Dwalin. You're safe now. You're just having a nightmare."

I kept whispering to her, holding her firm in my arms until she stopped struggling. Then the reaction set in, and she began to weep. Waking up screaming is always embarrassing. So is the crying and so forth, but you just have to hope to Mahal that there's someone around to help you get through it. So she clung to me, both hands grabbing fistfuls of the back of my undershirt, and I rocked her, back and forth, saying whatever came into my head until the trembling stopped.

"Relax, it's all right now," I said softly, patting her back. "Sorry I startled you, but you were about to cause a ruckus. Nightmares take a person like that sometimes."

She groaned. "Oh, Mahal, I didn't yell or anything, did I?"

"No, I got to you in time. I'll keep an eye on you from now on, in case they come back." I stroked her hair a few more times. It was silky and soft.

"Come back? No. Tell me this isn't going to happen again."

"Maybe not," I said with a shrug. "But sometimes they do. In my case, they did."

She pulled back a little to look up at me. "You get nightmares?"

"Not anymore. But I did." I tightened my hold on her a little, and she settled against me again.

"What stopped them?" she said into my chest. She was soft and cushiony, with surprisingly delicate little bones under the tender flesh. Her soft breasts pressed against my chest. It felt good. It felt right.

I sighed. "A friend. I talked it all over with a friend, and then…I could let it go. But he had gone through it with me, he'd been there and he knew what kind of a hell it had been. He really knew. I don't know if it works, just telling someone who wasn't there and doesn't know how it feels."

"He must be a very good friend." She sighed too, and I could feel her tears start up again, soaking my undershirt some more.

"Yes, he is. The best. Whatever he asked of me, I'd do, without question."

I could feel her nodding her head, then she got quiet. I wondered if she would tell me what had happened that night when she got kidnapped, but I didn't want to press her.

And so we sat for several long minutes, locked together in silence. My head was bowed over hers, my cheek almost touching the smooth skin of her forehead. I felt drunk on the sensation of holding her in my arms. Golden tendrils of hair tickled against my mouth. It would only take the tiniest movement to bring my lips into contact with her tempting skin. Just one kiss, very quick, and she might not even know…

Then something changed between us. She stirred and turned, lifting her face to mine as she pressed herself closer against me. Opening her fists, she smoothed her hands against my back, stroking me. She looked into my eyes. Suddenly I could hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears.

"Psst! Dwalin! It's almost time to call the fourth watch. Should I wake the lads?" said Bofur cheerfully.

We jerked apart, the moment shattered. My face flamed with heat. Hers probably was just as red, but I couldn't bring myself to look.

I cleared my throat. "Right. Fourth watch," I muttered, and stood up.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The next morning I got everyone moving early. But some people were even earlier than me—Var had been up long enough to have inspected and re-packed all of the caravan's goods. She was now wearing a practical traveling outfit of leather and wool, meant for a male dwarf but not inappropriate under the circumstances. I was glad to see that the men's clothing concealed her distinctly feminine curves. Her hair was still loose, though, and she was still in bedroom slippers. She couldn't walk the distances we would be covering in those flimsy things, so we'd have to put her on one of the mules.

She didn't look at me or talk to me at all that morning, just stalked around with her nose in the air, issuing orders to Bofur and Bombur. She even communicated with Bifur through a few hand gestures. Just as well, really, because I was too busy to talk to her.

I'd just discussed the matter of putting Var on a mule with Riki when Bofur alerted us that a rider was approaching. It was a gray haired dwarf on a pony. The rider "tch"ed in an irritated way when he saw the churned-up grass on the caravan route, and came around to where we had camped.

I stepped out to meet him. "What do you want?"

He was a fussy-looking fellow, with his hair all braided up and his beard stuffed neatly into a silver beard-cone. His fancy clothes were all arranged just so, and he brushed some dirt off his coat before launching into his tirade.

He shook his finger at me. "You know exactly what I want! I don't know who you are or what lies you've told, but I'll have you know that you can't fool me as easily as you fooled him! Caravan driver, pah! You look like the biggest scoundrel in Dunland. But I'm warning you, if you don't bring my brother Ori out here right away, I'll give you more trouble than you bargained for, and that's a promise you can rely on."

Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe now I'd be able to get the youngster off my hands. Not that he was a problem, really, but he was far too young and inexperienced to be out on his own. Nori's supervision of his younger brother was erratic, to say the least. He was happy to teach the lad how to pick a pocket or disassemble a lock, but when it came to life skills he hadn't a clue. In contrast, this brother seemed to be sensible enough. More importantly, he wanted Ori back.

"Ori!" I yelled over my shoulder.

The lad stormed forward, red-faced with anger. "Leave me alone, Dori! I'm not going home. I don't have to listen to you anymore. I'm going to Bree with Nori, and that's flat."

"With Nori?" said Dori his voice lifting to a high squeak. He looked about ready to fall off his pony in surprise.

The brother in question materialized beside Ori. He always seemed to move quietly and quickly. Nori said, "Not my fault. Nothing to do with it. Never expected—"

"Yes! I'm going to see the world," Ori said. "And I don't need you fussing over me, Dori, so you can just go home."

Dori's face sagged in disbelief and dismay. I felt bad for him. For both of them. I'd seen that exact same look on my brother Balin's face, the day I enlisted. Not that I would have changed my mind and chosen to live the life my older brother had picked out for me, but it hadn't been a pleasant moment.

"Well, now that the glad cries of welcome have been exchanged, let's all get off the road," I said, and walked back to the remains of the campfire without waiting to see if they would follow.

Var was talking to Riki next to the mule he'd assigned to her. As I walked by, she looked up and frowned at me. "Now what?"

"Ori's older brother just showed up to take him home," I said. "Dori's his name."

Her eyes widened. "Ori's leaving us?"

"They're still discussing it, but yes, if the lad has any sense he'll go home."

"And you're just letting him go? How could you? Oh…" She gave a little growl of exasperation and took off toward the three brothers, who had come around to our campsite.

"It's the only sensible way," I called after her, then turned to look at Riki. "Right?"

He shrugged. "Let the lady handle it."

"This is turning out to be the damnedest mess I've ever been involved in." And although this episode may not have been the absolute worst mess of my entire life, it's certainly up there in the top ten.

Suffice it to say that the makeshift caravan gained another dwarf that day. It was all Var's doing—somehow she convinced Ori that he ought to stay with us instead of going home like a good little boy, and at the same time she sweet-talked Dori into coming along to Bree and investigating potential business opportunities in the North.

At least we made good distance that day, and had no trouble along the road. We set up camp in Eriador that night, in a nice clearing that lay somewhat off the road. There was a clear, cold stream close by, hidden from the clearing by some bushes that were leafing out nicely as the springtime weather became milder. It looked as if we'd reach Bree the next day, or the day after at the latest.

Var and Dori got on like a house afire, exchanging recipes or whatever it was they talked about. He even braided her hair for her, putting her golden tresses up in a fancy style similar to the one he wore himself. It made her look a bit more masculine, but no amount of clothes or hairstyles could fool anyone into thinking her a male dwarf. The way she walked, the way she tilted her head, the little curl in the corner of her mouth when she was smiling but didn't want it to show… everything about her was feminine.

And she was bossy as hell. She'd slipped almost unconsciously into a leadership role, ordering the men around and seeing to it they did the work that needed to be done. And they followed her orders, too. Of course, it was very likely they were used to being ordered around by the female head of their clan.

Not many people know this, but that's the way it is among dwarves. There are many more men than women, and it just so happens that the women tend to run the households and the clans, while the men go out mining or fighting or whatever they happen to do. Some women are merchants too, like Aunt Nott, but mostly they stay home and order the men to do all the traveling and buying and selling. Women dwarves own the property, make the rules, and generally keep track of the wealth that male dwarves collect. It works for us.

So it seemed that Var was used to running things. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but we needed to get a few things straightened out. After all, it was my operation.

"Where's Var?" I asked Zigur, who was tending the campfire. Bifur came up, holding some of the fish he'd evidently caught in the stream.

"Ah, supper," Zigur said, looking pleased about the fish. Bifur grunted something, and Zigur nodded before glancing at me. "Var? Don't know."

I wandered off to look for her. Ori, Dori and Nori were sitting together arguing about something, and Bombur and Bofur were sitting patiently on the stream bank fishing.

I hunkered down beside them.

"Var? Haven't seen her since we started fishing," Bofur said. "Lovely lady. It's an honor to travel with her. Quite an important person, I'll wager."

"Probably."

"Wonder if she's married?"

"I don't know."

"Not that she'd be interested in the likes of me, of course." Bofur smiled cheerfully.

"I doubt it."

"Or you either, right?" He stuck an elbow in my direction.

I shook my head. "Don't know."

"Not refined enough, are we?"

"No."

"Ladies don't go for rough miners, or beat-up old soldiers, you know?"

"Hmmmm." I straightened up.

"They like young ones who don't have scars or chunks missing out of their ears, or—"

It seemed like a good idea to leave before I did anything I might regret. I brushed off my hands. "Good luck with the fish."

I wandered farther down the stream bank. Tiny white flowers nodded along its mossy borders, and trees stretched their roots out along the edges, trapping the bigger rocks and making the flowing water curl around them in pretty silver ribbons.

Var was bathing just behind one of those curves. I'd like to say that I did the gentlemanly thing, and averted my eyes the moment I caught a glimpse of her. It would have been the sensible thing to do, too, considering Bofur's comments of just a few minutes before. She would never be interested in me, so the less I saw of what I could never have, the better.

What can I say? I must like torturing myself.

She was standing ankle deep in the water. I stared at her, drinking in every beautiful naked bit of her. The world faded around me. An army could have marched by—anything could have happened, and I wouldn't have noticed. I don't know how long I gazed at her. Long enough that even now, so many years later, I can shut my eyes and see her just as she was then, delicate pink tipped with rose red, and crowned with gold.

Then a twig snapped somewhere on the other side of the stream and she crouched down suddenly, looking for an intruder. I came to my senses and drew back behind the tree. No sounds followed.

Now that I had my wits about me again, I stomped my feet a few times as I stood behind the tree, and then called her name. "Var? We need to talk."

I heard a gasp, and then a splash. She was probably running to her clothes. "Just a minute."

"Take your time." I stared up at the leafy green canopy overhead, listening to the forest around me to tell if we were the only people within earshot. All I could hear were natural sounds. Things that belonged.

"How long have you been standing over there?" Her voice sounded a little shrill. Annoyed or nervous? Maybe both.

"Not long. I wanted to talk to you without the others listening in. I didn't know—I didn't expect—" My ears started burning, so I shut my mouth before it got me into any more trouble. Mahal, what else would she be doing, in the water this far from camp? Of course she'd been taking a bath. I wiped my hand over my face as I leaned back against the tree.

She grumbled something I didn't hear.

"What was that?" I called. My eyes were fixed on the leaves overhead, as a kind of penance.

Her voice sounded close beside me. "I said, what else would I be doing?" She was standing with one hand braced against the tree, and the other hand fisted on her hip. The masculine clothes covered up her glorious body. It took a lot of willpower not to think about where certain parts of her anatomy might be found under the layers of fabric.

My eyes were watering with the effort of keeping them on her face. I glared at her. "We need to discuss the chain of command within the group, and while I appreciate your help this is still my operation."

She crossed her arms. "What did you have in mind?"

I explained the plan I'd worked out. While I was happy to have someone to help manage our bivouacs each night, what would happen if our little caravan was attacked? We needed to have some plan in place. She offered some suggestions, and we came to an agreement. It had gone more easily than I expected, and we headed back.

Before we reached the camp, she laid one hand on my arm and looked up into my eyes. "So, Dwalin, did you like what you saw?"

My face heated up again, but I didn't let my gaze fall from hers. "It was an accident." I couldn't think of what else to say, even though the words crowded up behind my lips—yes; I'm sorry; I want you; I know I can't have you; don't be mad.

She stared at me for several long moments, her hand resting lightly on my forearm. Then she let her hand drop, and walked back to the camp.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The next day we had almost reached the South Downs in Cardolan, not too far from Bree, when we were attacked by bandits.

Things had gotten so peaceful, I'd almost forgotten what fighting was like—for days there'd been nothing to trouble us on our journey. The ox had recovered nicely, the road was reasonably smooth. We all got along.

Well, most of us got along. Var gave me the cold shoulder. Not that I minded. Hell, I expected that, having gotten caught watching her while she bathed. What I didn't expect that morning was for Bombur, the cook, to ride up by my side for a chat.

I didn't mind him. He was fairly self-effacing, cooked well, and stayed out of my way. He was even good in a fight. I looked at his earnest face. "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing. Well, not _nothing_," he corrected himself. He had a soft, nervous way of talking. "I mean, just wanted to say that you shouldn't get discouraged. Don't pay too much attention to what Bofur says sometimes. About women not liking — well, about women only liking the young, handsome dwarves."

"No?" I asked as discouragingly as possible. I had a bad feeling about where this conversation was going, and I really didn't want to talk about it.

Bombur's face got red, but he plowed onward. He spread his arms wide. "I mean, look at me. I'm married, and we've got twelve young ones. Well, thirteen, if you count…But the thing is, you just can't tell, with women. And I think Var likes you. You just have to be yourself. Be nice to her."

"So do you want me to be nice, or to be myself?"

Bombur must have realized that this was a hopeless conversation, because he stammered out a few more encouraging words before fading back to join his brother and his cousin. I guess he meant well, but after that, I felt gloomier than ever.

So it was something of a relief when about mid-afternoon a handful of tough-looking desperadoes burst out of the underbrush near a stand of trees, riding hell-for-leather toward us waving their weapons and shouting. They didn't take us by surprise, though. We reacted quickly enough.

I dropped my reins, grabbed both axes out of their holsters, and sank my heels into my pony, Harley. She leapt forward like the brave little nag that she was, even though she wasn't trained in warfare. The bandits veered away from my charge, only to meet Nori's knives and Riki's sword. Dori turned out to have a wicked way with bolos—a weapon made of three iron spheres, each dangling at the end of a metal link chain, that he whipped around his head and then threw at his attacker. Ori, bless the lad, did some damage with his slingshot.

Bofur, Bifur and Bombur produced a motley collection of tools, which they wielded to surprisingly deadly effect. Seriously, I'd have guessed that Bifur's boar-spear and Bofur's pickaxe would make dangerous weapons, but a cooking-ladle? Bombur accounted for several dented heads with that thing. I was impressed.

The strangest thing was that the so-called bandits didn't seem to be interested in the cart, which was where the gold was. Instead, they made directly for Var.

She had a dagger in her hand (one I'd given her the day before, not that it had earned me more than a nod of thanks), but her mule had decided not to join in the martial spirit of the moment. The beast had its ears flat back against its head, jibbing and backing away from the noise and commotion, tossing its head every time she sawed at the reins.

Dori and Ori were closest to her, but weren't able to keep all of the bandits off. One of them had circled round behind them. I saw him reach for Var out of the corner of my eye, just as I was dealing with an ugly rascal trying to stick a sword in my chest. I had half-turned in my saddle, shouting for someone to help her, when Ugly slipped under my guard and managed to nick me in the ribs with his weapon.

I finished him as quickly as I could, and then wheeled Harley around. The bandit had flung one arm around Var's shoulders. I was too late to keep him from dragging her off her mule, so I rode up alongside and gave him a solid punch to the temple with my spring-loaded knuckledusters. He sagged forward, unconscious, and I grabbed Var's waist and pulled her onto my saddle.

The fight was over after that, so we set up camp and took stock of the situation. The dwarves had come through safely enough, although Dori and Ori both had wounds that Riki was attending to. Everybody else seemed to be in good spirits. I felt a little giddy myself.

I walked over to Var, who was building a fire under Bofur's supervision. The beautiful dwarf woman had a few questions to answer. Like, why were the bandits after her? And what exactly was her story, after all? If she would be attracting troublemakers, we had a right to know what kind of trouble we were facing because of her.

Var stopped stacking twigs and gave me a cool stare. "I suppose I should thank you."

I nodded. Then I frowned. There was a big patch of blood on the shoulder and sleeve of her shirt. "Are you all right? You're bleeding." I reached out to pluck at her bloody clothing. The sudden movement made me a little dizzy, but it passed. I probably just needed a drink or something to steady me. Busy day.

She ducked away from my hand, and stared at her shoulder in surprise. "What? I'm not hurt."

"Let me see your shoulder," I said. I took a step closer, but the ground seemed suddenly unsteady beneath my feet. "If you're injured—"

"Oh! It's not me who's injured," Var gasped, staring at me. "Your whole side is covered with blood."

"I'm fine," I protested. Suddenly the ground rushed up to meet me. Luckily, something soft broke my fall.

"Ugh! You big fool," Var said, from far away.

Then I must have passed out.

When I came to, I was lying on my back on a bedroll, a short distance from the fire. Bombur, Bifur and Bofur were cooking supper and Riki was tending the animals. Nori was leaning against a boulder sharpening one of his knives. Dori was nagging Ori about something. The rest were sitting, resting or sleeping.

Var was kneeling over me. Her fingers were prodding at my side, which hurt like fire. "Ouch," I said.

"Hold still. I still haven't managed to tie the knot in this bandage." She bent her head, biting her lower lip as she worked. "There really wasn't enough material to go around your chest, but we have to hold the pad on somehow. There."

"Stop tickling me."

"Don't be a baby. I'm not hurting you," she said heartlessly. Her hands roamed over my ribs, tugging at the bandage she'd wound around me, smoothing it flat. Then her fingers stroked over my chest, tracing the outlines of old scars, moving down toward my waist. My bare skin tingled where she touched it.

Mahal, I was naked to the waist. And Var was looking at me and touching me. I drew in a breath. "Where's my shirt?"

"It was all bloody," Var said absently, staring down at my chest. My beard wasn't long enough to cover everything, so she was getting a good view all the way down to my navel. She was drawing little circles with her fingertips on my puckered skin. It was hard to take a deep breath. "You've got a lot of scars. Here, and here. And here."

I barely suppressed a groan. Her touch burned me, it made me ache, it turned my bones to water, and I couldn't let it show. A dwarf woman can have any man she wants—she chooses the lucky dwarf who will become her husband. There are a lot fewer women, so they can have their choice of the men, if they want one. However, for the men, it's a different story. Male dwarves far outnumber the women. We work, or dig in the mines, or fight in wars. Some men settle down together, and that's fine for them. I hadn't married, and probably never would—not the type to appeal to the feminine taste, I guess. It wasn't my choice. But that didn't mean I felt no desire. She was cruel, to tease me like this.

I glared at her. "All right, you've made your point. I said I was sorry about…yesterday. No disrespect intended. You don't have to keep doing this to me."

She withdrew her hands and gaped at me in amazement. Then her face turned bright red. "I wasn't trying to make a point," she said, biting off each word with the precision that comes from pure indignation. "I was just…" Her voice trailed off, and her eyes kind of darted around.

Just what? I wanted to ask. If she wasn't getting back at me for having watched her a little while she was bathing, why was she petting and stroking me like that? I kept my mouth shut. Maybe I didn't want to know why.

She cleared her throat. "Well, just so you know, I didn't mean any disrespect either. But you were injured. That sword-cut you took made you lose a lot of blood, and I was worried about you. That's all."

"Oh." Hell, maybe I'd overreacted a little bit there. "Well, I'm okay. Don't worry about me."

Var actually smiled at me. "But I do. And I'm glad you were there today. You saved me."

Relieved, I smiled back. I found her hand and squeezed it lightly. "I'll always protect you, if I can, Var."

She took a quick breath in, and gave me a funny, startled kind of look. Then she squeezed my hand in return. "Thanks, Dwalin."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Bree. Bree! What a cheerful-sounding name. Hell of a place, though—only one decent inn, and it's filled with farmers as dull as the land they worked. Most of the inhabitants of the place are Men, naturally, because Elves like to skulk around in the forests and Dwarves prefer the elegance and comfort of our mountain halls.

But I was feeling pretty cheerful when we arrived in Bree. Mission accomplished and nobody lost or seriously damaged. All I had to do was to hand the gold over to Aunt Nott. Then I could go home and catch up on my drinking.

We went to The Prancing Pony, the single decent inn I was talking about. Aunt Nott had already arrived, complete with her usual retinue of servants and guards and outriders. I turned the cart with the gold over to Nandi, Aunt Nott's chief assistant, and let him know that there would be dwarves to pay for services rendered. He nodded and said he'd take care of them.

Then I tried to explain about Var. Nandi looked confused. Introductions seemed to be in order but when I looked around for her, she had vanished. Worse, my stomach was empty and rumbling. Food first, I decided, and then I'd track her down and get her sorted.

In the taproom of the inn, my traveling companions were already enjoying a hearty meal. Butterbur the innkeeper serves decent food. Before I could join them, however, I heard a familiar deep voice calling my name.

"Dwalin." My cousin, Thorin Oakenshield, smiled as he embraced me. We head-butted, warrior-fashion, and pounded each other heartily on the back. You have to be in good shape to endure a dwarven welcome, and of course we both were.

"Thorin," I replied. "What are you drinking? Let me buy you another." This was to let him know how delighted I was to see him again. I was also glad to see him in such good spirits. Thorin was a gloomy cuss, frustrated and angry about things that seemed impossible to change. He'd never gotten over the loss of Erebor—the burden of kingship, I guess. But he was a good dwarf, a rock-solid leader and the best of friends. I would trust him with my life. Anything he wanted of me, I'd give him without question or hesitation. Anything.

The ladies loved Thorin, and not just dwarven women. Even the human women sighed and fluttered their eyelashes at him. I'm not kidding—two of the barmaids at the Pony brought us our mugs of ale. One mug they deposited on the table somewhere near me. The other they tenderly placed at Thorin's side. Then they fussed for a bit, wiping down the table so that he wouldn't get any spilled ale on his coat sleeves. He smiled at them in thanks and they practically fainted on the spot.

I could have told them that it wouldn't do any good. Once, long ago, Thorin had been a happy young prince—handsome, wealthy, and engaged to a beautiful girl—but then the dragon had come and everything had changed. Now, Thorin was too tied up in knots inside to even notice all this female attention.

I'd said as much to a dwarven woman I knew, and she had sighed. "Well, of course he doesn't notice _them_. But _I_ could help him, if only he'd let me!"

Once the barmaids had retreated, Thorin told me that he'd come to Bree to negotiate some deal or other having to do with the sale of plowshares. He started looking gloomy, so to cheer him up, I told him what I'd been doing. During my tale, the other dwarves drifted over to the table and I introduced them all. They were suitably impressed to meet a real Heir of Durin (although technically I'm one, too. It's just lucky for everyone that there's no danger of me ever ascending the throne). Soon Thorin was giving them all a piece of his kingly mind. He's a powerful speaker and they were his, body and soul, long before he'd finished talking.

Then a tall, scruffy-looking fellow in gray robes stalked into the inn. He leaned on a wooden staff, and in one hand he held a blue hat that came to a sharp point on top. His cold blue eyes surveyed the taproom.

When Thorin caught sight of him, he stood up and moved toward him. "Master Gandalf, I know you only by sight, but now I should be glad to speak with you. For you have often come into my thoughts of late, as if I were bidden to seek you. Indeed I should have done so, if I had known where to find you."

Gandalf looked at him with wonder. "That is strange, Thorin Oakenshield," he said. "For I have thought of you also; and though I am on my way to the Shire, it was in my mind that is the way also to your halls."

So Thorin and this Gandalf went to talk things over at another table, and the rest of us were left to eat and drink on our own. The ale flowed freely, and the atmosphere had gotten pretty lively by the time I finished my dinner.

Nandi came over and told me that Aunt Nott required my presence. I warned the dwarves not to break anything they couldn't replace, and followed him up the stairs. He went into her room, after motioning to me to wait outside.

The two maids who had fluttered around Thorin came giggling down the hall, but they stopped when they saw me. They curtsied.

"Good evening, sir," said the one with brown curly hair. She looked at the door of the room Aunt Nott was staying in, and then back at me. "Are you here with Lord Nott?"

I raised one eyebrow. "_Lord_ Nott?"

Aunt Nott was a great-grandmother, stocky and gruff and round as a barrel, but she was still a woman. Anybody with an ounce of sense could see that she wasn't a man. Could it be that the people here couldn't tell the difference? And had Aunt Nott allowed the mistake to stand, for some reason of her own? She was a crafty old devil, and I wouldn't have put it past her.

"He comes here often," she said, studying me. "He's a very wealthy dwarf."

"So is the younger one," said her companion, whose hair was the color of polished copper. She sighed. "He's so good-looking, too."

Another conquest for Thorin, apparently.

"I love that blonde hair," the redhead added with a giggle.

Curly-Head patted my arm, and the door to the room opened as she said, "Not me. Are you busy later on, sir dwarf?"

"Um, yes. Busy," I muttered and walked past her into the room. My ears were burning. Mahal, what was that girl thinking? She wasn't even a dwarf.

"Tell the blonde one I'd be happy to serve him," the redhead called after me.

Nandi smirked as he closed the door behind me, and I glared at him. This was ridiculous.

At the other end of the room, sitting behind a table that was apparently serving her as a desk, sat Aunt Nott. She scowled at me, looking for all the world like a big frog with her wide, disapproving mouth and small black eyes. She was wearing a green robe trimmed with silver bullion embroidered in diamond shapes along the collar and front. Her beard was almost as silver as the embroidery on her clothing.

The beards of dwarf women are nothing like what men grow. They're downy and soft, and very short. The most noticeable hair on younger women is along the temples, which grows down the sides of a woman's face in front of her ears, like sideburns. Then there is light, wispy hair along the jawline under the chin, barely noticeable save on the darkest-haired of women. Totally different from how a man's hair grows.

However, the older a woman gets, the more you can see her beard. Aunt Nott had white hairs actually bracketing her mouth and chin, as well as the hair along the sides of her face. She still looked like a woman to me, but I could kind of see how she might look different to a human, whose women had no hair at all on their faces.

"I certainly hope you're not planning to commit any foolishness with Butterbur's barmaids," Aunt Nott said. "So far it appears you've done well with this operation. Don't ruin it now."

"No! That is, thanks for the compliments, but no. Not my style," I said. My ears felt hotter and the warmth started trickling down my neck. I looked around the room. Nandi had settled in a chair, and one of Aunt Nott's female attendants sat behind her in a shadowy corner of the room. I relaxed enough to chuckle. "I think they like Thorin better. And whoever your blonde dwarf might be. Did Fili come with you?"

"No." Aunt Nott tapped the table top. "Give me your report."

I sat down and told her the whole story, from hiring the dwarves in Dunland, to discovering Var imprisoned in the cart, to adding the caravan dwarves and then bringing Dori into our group. Then I described the attack by bandits in the South Downs, and how the bandits ignored the gold to go for Var. Aunt Nott nodded thoughtfully.

Summing it all up, I said, "So what we don't know is, who is Var? How did she get mixed up with your gold in the first place, and who's after her? Also, where is she now? I haven't seen her since we arrived at the inn."

Aunt Nott nodded some more. Finally she said, "Very well. Thanks, Dwalin. You may go."

I stood up through force of habit, then stopped. "But you haven't answered my questions."

"You don't need to worry about it. I'll take it from here," she said calmly.

"But I just told you that her life is being threatened. Damn it, I said I'd protect her, and we don't even know where she is."

Aunt Nott gave me a long, considering look, then nodded again. "I know where she is. Since you seem eager to do so, then you shall protect her as we all travel back to the Blue Mountains."

A chill went up my spine. "Wait. What? No, I'm done with this. I just wanted to know if she was safe."

"She is safe. For the moment," said Aunt Nott. She motioned to her lady attendant, who stood up and came forward.

She moved into the light, an elegant dwarven beauty with her golden hair piled up in loops and ringlets dotted with dangling pearls. Her elaborate dress was of crimson satin, laced tightly with gold cords that defined and enhanced her womanly figure. Over the dress she wore a dark red robe of heavy velvet. She was gorgeous—powerfully, overwhelmingly magnificent. My mouth hung open, and maybe I drooled a little.

"Var?" I whispered. Then I cleared my throat. "Oh, so there you are."

She smiled at me, and my heart nearly stopped. I didn't think I could take too much more of her piercing beauty. It would turn me into a gibbering idiot. Assuming, of course, I wasn't already an idiot. My brains felt like they were going soft.

Aunt Nott said, "Well, Var, you were right. It sounds like he made you a promise. I'll let you have him until we get back to the Blue Mountains. But after that, he is mine again."

I panicked. "Look, I'm standing right here! You can't just hand me off to her like a spare pack mule."

Var planted her hands on her hips and glared at me. "Didn't you say you'd protect me? Didn't you?"

And just like that, she was her normal self again, bossy and difficult and very, very pretty. I was infinitely relieved.

"Okay, all right. I guess I did." I waved a forefinger in Var's face. "But you better answer my questions."

"Come with me, and I'll explain." Var said.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Finally, an explanation! For days now, I'd been waiting for some straight answers. Was it too much to ask?

Var got to her feet and walked out the door of Aunt Nott's room. But before I could follow her, Aunt Nott said, "Dwalin. A word."

I turned to glare at her. _Now_ she wanted to chat? Good thing she was my favorite aunt.

She beckoned me to her side, and spoke in a soft voice. "Be on your guard, my lad. I don't know what game Var is playing, or what trouble she might be in, but I can tell you that things are not entirely what they seem."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Aunt Nott held up both hands, palms out. "Just be careful. That's all."

Well. If I'd been worried that I didn't understand a perfectly simple and straightforward situation, I could now rest assured that this situation was neither of those things.

But I still didn't understand it. And that worried me.

I went down the hall to Var's room, and for a wonder, she was there waiting for me. She hadn't vanished. The room was comfortable, with a sizeable wardrobe, a fire crackling in the fireplace and cheerful curtains at the windows overlooking the stable yard of the inn. A quick glance out the window showed several carriages and a hay wagon in the yard below.

If Var thought it strange of me to check out her room like this, she didn't show it. I like to know where I am, and how to leave quickly if I have to. Not that anything could get me to leave, now that Var was going to give me the promised and well-deserved explanation of what the hell was going on.

Finally, I came to stand in front of her, my arms folded across my chest. "So, tell me."

Var sat with her chin up, back straight and hands resting along the arms of her chair, like a queen on her throne. She gestured at another dwarf-sized chair. "Sit down."

"I'd rather stand."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. "

The pearls in her golden hair trembled slightly when she moved. They are exotic adornments indeed for a dwarf woman, because pearls come from the sea, and not deep inside the earth. The crimson satin of her sleeves came down to points over the knuckles of her middle fingers, hiding her still healing wrists.

I'd gotten used to seeing her in men's clothing, or in random cast-offs, or even (in my mind's eye) in nothing at all, but I wasn't used to seeing her all dressed up. She looked beautiful but strange. I really didn't know her at all, I reminded myself.

She drew in a breath. "I live in the dwarven settlement beneath Methedras, the southernmost peak of the Misty Mountains. We call it Gabil-inbar, the Great Horn of the South."

I nodded, and she went on.

"My people deal in precious gems, the rarest and most beautiful in Middle-earth, which we extract from deep underground. We offer some of our treasures to other dwarven artisans—for a fair price. In the past, Lady Nott has sought me out for special commissions, and over the years we—have been of service to one another."

There was something about the way she hesitated as she chose her words, like she was picking one sparkling bit of information out of a hoard of facts, which told me I wasn't getting everything.

"She buys jewels from me, and pays well for the quality she gets. And from time to time, we're able to meet and talk about—matters of mutual interest. Things that concern our clans. After all, we are responsible for transporting valuable goods through lands that are not always safe, and it helps to be fully informed about the state of affairs in the lands through which we travel.

"But it's usually a matter of paying attention to gossip in certain parts, listening to people talk about their travels, and their business dealings, and putting two and two together. The more one knows, the safer one is, I've found.

"This time, she'd asked me—" she looked toward the door as the drumming of hasty feet sounded outside in the hallway.

I strode over to the door and listened. When I heard the ringing slither of steel blades being drawn, I jammed a ladder-back chair under the handle and sprinted to Var's side. "Come on."

"What the— " she spluttered as I hauled her out of her chair.

The door was shuddering under a pounding assault. Hoarse voices roared and steel blades clanged in the inn's hallway as I flung open the window sash. "We'll have to go out the window. Looks like whoever's after you hasn't given up yet."

"No!" she wailed, and clutched at her skirts. "Why does this always happen when I'm not dressed for it?"

I scooped her up and bundled her through the window. "There's a hay wagon down there. Don't miss it. Then get out of the way, because I'll be right behind you."

"Grrr," she said, and disappeared into the dark.

Behind me, the door burst open and three human ruffians armed with swords poured through. I cursed, because I didn't have any of my usual weapons on me. It was an inn, for Mahal's sake. I shouldn't have needed my warhammer.

Trusting that Aunt Nott would settle up with the innkeeper, I ripped the leg off a spindly little nighttable and thrust it into the solar plexus of the nearest man. He gasped and fell back, and I swung around to block the second man's sword. The blade bit deeply into the wood, got stuck, and I yanked the weapon out of his hand. Then I turned and dove out the window, hoping like hell that there would be a pile of hay beneath me when I landed.

There was. I hit the wagon hard enough to drive the air from my lungs, but it was better than solid ground. Then the horse that was hitched to the wagon whinnied and the wagon lurched forward. The wagon was moving.

A heavy body landed on the dirt behind the wagon, and an agonized groan told me that one of the ruffians had just missed landing beside me in the hay. I chuckled.

"Stop laughing and get up here," Var snapped from the driver's seat. "I can't drive this thing."

Up in the window of Var's room, the third ruffian was cursing at us. Then he pulled his head in and disappeared. I climbed up next to her and hauled back on the reins until the horse stopped. "Neither can I. Let's go."

We jumped down from the wagon, leaving the bewildered horse standing in the middle of the stable yard. I grabbed Var's hand, and we ran out into the dark streets of Bree.

"Where are we going now?" Var asked breathlessly.

If I recalled correctly, there were other inns in Bree. Not good ones, but at least we could find someplace to hide for the night. In the moonlight, I thought I saw the outline of a familiar sign.

"This way," I said, and we ran down a nameless street.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

It's hard to be inconspicuous when you're running around a farm town at night wearing a red velvet cloak and hood.

So I pulled Var into the mouth of an alley, and tugged at her cloak. "Button that thing up, and cover your face with the hood as best you can."

When she did, I took her to a run-down inn that catered mostly to humans—the kind with very little money. Everything in the place was oversized and shabby, but it was reasonably clean and the innkeeper displayed a satisfying lack of interest in his customers.

In our room, Var carefully removed the pearls from her hair and stowed them in a pocket of the cloak for safekeeping. They were valuable, but it would be hard to exchange them for cash without attracting attention. Ah, well, a problem for another day—a day when we got hungry, no doubt. These quick getaways were always problematic.

I watched as she began to remove more pieces of clothing. Her outfit had several layers to it, apparently. There was the outer, shiny red dress with the gold cords, and then a soft calf-length red shift underneath, plus matching stockings and red leather boots. She kept the shift and stockings on, which was depressingly modest of her.

She turned to me. "Take off your tunic and things," she said briskly. "Then climb up on the bed."

I raised my eyebrows. "What, not even going to buy me a mug of ale first?"

"Very funny. I want to make sure that the cut on your ribs hasn't opened up again."

She stood staring at me expectantly, and my face started to feel damned hot. Well, it's an uncomfortable thing to just strip off in front of someone. I raised one hand, index finger pointing downward, and twirled it. "Turn around."

She smiled, then turned in a complete circle, ending up facing me again.

I snorted. "Everyone thinks they're a comedian. Turn around."

"Oh, stop it. It's not like I haven't seen your chest before." She came closer. "Here, I'll help you."

I fended her off. "No, I'll do it." Sighing, I removed the leather belts and straps, the dagger and its sheath, the Warg pelt, the olive-green tunic, a couple of small holsters for hideout knives, my boots (making sure the weapons and tools inside them were safe), and finally, my undershirt. There were a few little streaks of new blood on the undershirt, but nothing serious.

Then I climbed up on the bed, which was huge and lumpy. Its rope frame creaked a little, but there was plenty of stuffing and it didn't sag too much. Var climbed up beside me.

"Lie back," she ordered.

I did, tucking my hands behind my head to make it easier for her to reach my ribs. "Are you going to take advantage of me?"

I was joking, of course. I figured she'd roll her eyes, or make some exasperated sound—anything to relieve the tension of being alone together, on a bed, not wearing much in the way of clothing. But she didn't. The exasperated look faded from her face and she surveyed every last inch of my exposed flesh. My heart started beating faster.

But she didn't move toward me, either. She just stared. I swallowed and said, "So finish your story. You were saying that you sold gems and collected information."

She blinked a couple of times, then became brisk and businesslike again. "Right. Well, you know most of it now. I collect information, because it's good for business. And it's easy, usually. I don't go anywhere, I just have people over—and listen to what they tell me."

She un-knotted the old bandage, and removed the blood-soaked pad. Her fingers were deft and gentle, and I liked hearing the sound of her voice. It was so soothing. I wanted to sink into comfort of her soft touches and sweet murmurs. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to concentrate on her words instead.

"But it seems like something I've learned is more important than I realized," she was saying. "That's the way it is with secrets—people tell you things that seem so trivial, but which are immensely valuable to someone else. And sometimes you don't even know."

"So what have you heard recently that could have caused all this commotion?" I asked.

She placed a folded-up piece of cotton—a handkerchief, I thought—against my side, and then reached around me with both arms for the strip of cloth that would hold it in place. Her cheek rested briefly on my chest. I shifted my position, and something hard dug into my right kidney. My pockets still had various tools in them, and I'd forgotten to remove this particular item: two joined loops of mithril, light and flexible but unbreakable. I made a mental note to shift the things in my pockets to my boots when I got the chance.

"Nothing I can put my finger on. There are always reports of flashes of light being seen from the top of the Tower of Orthanc at night, but since Saruman the White lives there, that's only to be expected. And it's of no consequence to us, for luckily he takes no notice of the Dwarves. The Dunlendings are a half-wild folk who would rather prey upon our caravans of goods than trade honorably, so I am always alert for news of bandits along the trade routes. The Men of Rohan come to us for raw materials and fashion their own tools and weapons."

She knotted the bandage holding the pad in place, and sat back. "However, a jeweler I know, an old dwarf of legendary skill and craftsmanship, told me that an old man had come to him seeking knowledge concerning dwarven techniques in fashioning jewelry—necklaces and rings and brooches and such. But it seems nothing came of it, for the jeweler died not long ago, and the man Sharku never returned."

Dunlending bandits. Riders of Rohan. Craftsmen seeking knowledge. Wizards shooting thunderbolts into the dark. I tried to picture how these rumors and glimpses might be fitted together to make a larger whole, but it wasn't easy.

"Our attackers at the Pony looked like Dunlendings. Maybe the Dunlendings are preparing for war against Rohan. Are there any bandit chieftains who have developed larger ambitions?"

She shrugged. "Could be. I just don't know who it might be. I've told all this to Nott, and perhaps she can make some sense of it."

"She'd better figure it out fast, because we can't stop the attacks until we know who's behind them," I pointed out.

Var sighed and looked down at her hands, which lay empty, palms up, in her lap. "We may never know. And if we don't, the attacks won't stop until I'm dead. Or until they think I'm dead."

I looked sharply at her. Did she realize what she was saying? I said, "We'll stop them."

"How? We don't know who they are or what they want." There was a note of despair in her voice.

Mahal damn her, she was planning to sneak away in the middle of the night. I could feel it in my bones. She was going to run, thinking she would be sparing us all from danger, and odds were all she'd be doing would be to hand herself on a silver platter to whoever it is who was after her.

"You don't need to do this alone. Let me help you." I propped myself up on one elbow and reached for her hand.

Smiling, she took my hand and squeezed it, then released it. She leaned forward to cup my face in both her hands, tenderly smoothing my beard against my jaws. My eyes closed of their own accord, and I nearly groaned with pleasure. Mahal, it felt good.

"Don't get mixed up in my problems, Dwalin. I'm bad luck, and I don't want it to rub off on you."

Using about a lifetime supply of willpower, I sat up and took her hands from my beard. I held both her hands in one of mine, and stroked down the side of her face with one knuckle. "Oh, yeah, because I have no idea what bad luck is like. I just wouldn't know what to do if trouble came my way. Or your way."

"Are you making fun of me?" Var asked, her eyes flashing. "Spare me, all right? This is hard enough for me as it is."

It wasn't hard to put a regretful look on my face right then, because I really was sorry. But sometimes a man has to do the difficult thing. Casually, I reached behind my back with my free hand and dug my fingers into my back pocket. "I'm sorry you don't see things my way."

She ducked her head, resigned to her solitary martyrdom, determined to run away and spare us all the trouble she was sure she brought down on our heads, et cetera and so on.

That was when I whipped out the mithril double-loop. I slid one loop over her wrist and pulled it closed. Then I put the other loop over my own wrist and tightened it. We were handcuffed together.

"As I said, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you do this alone."

Shock and outrage blazed in her eyes, and I braced myself for the explosion.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

It had seemed like the right thing to do until the moment the mithril handcuff snapped shut against my wrist. Var and I were chained together now.

In all my fighting, brawling, warlike life I've never seen anyone so mad. Fury rolled off her in heat waves. Her accusing glare incinerated me as she realized exactly what I'd done.

Seriously, I couldn't let her just run out on me. Her pursuers would have killed her before she'd even had a chance to find a new place to hide, and we didn't even know why. Well, I didn't know why—but it didn't seem like she really understood why they were after her either.

She needed me. I'd sworn to protect her, and I had every intention of doing so if she would just cooperate. But she wasn't, so to keep her here—to keep her safe—I'd handcuffed the two of us together. While we were alone in our room at a nameless inn. Half-dressed. On a bed. I was beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of this move.

She hauled her free arm back, ready to smack my face. I caught her wrist and dragged it behind her, securing both her hands with one of mine. That brought us close together, so close my breath stirred her golden hair.

We stared into one another's eyes for a moment, then she snarled and bared her teeth. To keep her from biting, I dug my free hand into the back of her elaborate hairstyle and held her away from me. A shower of hairpins fell onto the bedspread.

Her voice was soft and dangerous. "How dare you?"

"You are not running away." I tightened my grip on her hair, feeling my nails scrape against her scalp. "I won't let you rush out and get yourself killed. You can't do it all alone. You've got me, now."

She blinked, and some of the angry heat faded from her eyes. "All right. Let me go."

Slowly, I loosened my hold on her and sat back. Cold air rushed in, chilling the places where our heated bodies had touched. I had no right, no right at all, to hold her against her will. I'd promised to protect her, but there were some lines you didn't cross. Perhaps she would have preferred to be stuck here with somebody else—some heroic young dwarf who would treat her gently and respectfully. But she'd gotten me instead.

She'd just have to deal with it.

"Maybe things haven't worked out the way we expected them to, but we're here now," I said. "You're in trouble. You need help, so let me help you."

I spoke calmly and reasonably, hoping she could tell that I had noble intentions—despite what it might look like.

She stared at me for a long time, seriously and searchingly. I don't know what she wanted from me, or what she thought she might find if she looked hard enough into my face. The moment stretched out as I waited for her response.

Suddenly she flung herself at me, wrapping her free arm around my neck and yanking our joined hands up to my shoulder. Her mouth landed on mine, her teeth grinding against my lips, her tongue warm and wet. I was stunned. My brain went blank and my mouth opened automatically to hers. A liquid heat filled my veins, relaxing and exciting at the same time.

She pulled her mouth from mine and began kissing my cheeks and under my jaw, biting and tonguing through my beard to the soft flesh of my throat beneath. I groaned as a geyser of sparks shot up my spine.

Our beards cover some of the tenderest skin on our bodies. The neck and throat is such a vulnerable area—and on dwarves, it is exquisitely sensitive.

As my surprise faded and my desire leaped, I gathered her in tight, pressing all her softness into me as much as I could. I kissed her temple, licking my way to her ear. She shivered and turned to offer herself to me. I cradled her head in one hand, exposing her sweet neck to my mouth. Then I felt her quiver in my arms as I kissed and sucked eagerly enough to mark her porcelain skin.

We were kneeling on the bed, breast to breast, belly to belly, barely separated by the thin fabric of her shift. The sparks had turned to a roaring furnace. I pulled away from her, gathered the shift in one hand, and lifted it up to her shoulders as I laid her on her back, exposing her body from shoulders down to the tops of her thigh-high stockings.

I drank in the sight of her, lying before me, naked and willing. "You are beautiful."

She reached for the laces on the front of my trousers. We undid them together, clumsy with haste. Neither of us were in the mood to dally.

"Come to me," she said, holding her arms out. I leaned over her, hooked my free arm under one of her knees and lowered myself down to cover her. In one motion I thrust inside her. She cried out and arched her back, but before I could retreat she'd wrapped her legs around my waist, holding me tight. Her free hand was on my back, nails digging into my skin, pulling me down to her.

It was like being in the heart of a furnace, all pressure and searing heat, binding us into one as we came apart and crashed together. And each time I drove myself into her, I said under my breath, "Mine. You are mine. Mine. All mine." The fire between us became an inferno, turning all thought to ash, until nothing mattered but reaching the burning peak.

"Mine," I roared as I came, and she trembled and bucked beneath me in her own release.

"And you are mine, Dwalin," she whispered as we lay twined together, panting. "You are mine."

I nodded. I was hers.

I still get a tingle when I think about that night. _All _that night. And again that morning, too. Being with Var was about as close as I'd ever come to bliss, and I figured it was about time. I deserved something good.

But then around breakfast time, Nori came knocking on the door. How he'd found us, I didn't know. I refused to ask. We made him wait outside until we were dressed.

He tried not to look at us. He tried not to smile, too. "Lady Nott's been asking for you. Says to come back to the Pony. Couple of bandits across the street. Coast is clear now, though."

I looked at Var. "You'll be safe with us. You know that, right?"

She nodded.

I looked at Nori. "Okay, we're coming back with you to the Pony. Var will place herself under Aunt Nott's protection."

He nodded, still not looking at me. "Shall I," he said, and paused. For some reason, he was biting his lips. "Shall I unlock you?"

"That would be nice, Nori," Var said briskly. He pulled out his lockpick and had us un-handcuffed in a trice. She gave him a level look. "And I don't think you have any tales to tell the others. Do you?"

"No ma'am," Nori said solemnly.

We went back to the Prancing Pony Inn. Var went up to Aunt Nott's room, and I went to get something to eat.

The other dwarves were eating, so I went to join them. Bombur looked up at me, and a big smile spread across his face. He hurried over to clap me on the back. "Congratulations, my friend. I wish you very well. Very well indeed."

I shook my head. "Why?"

He looked so happy, I thought he was going to cry. "You're a very lucky man," Bombur said. "She's a lovely lady."

"Oho!" Bofur nodded wisely. "So Dwalin's a married man now. Bombur can always tell."

"I'm not married," I said.

"In our neck of the woods, you would be," Bofur said. "We do things differently in the South. In your case, laddie, it's all over but the cryin'."

Bombur was nodding enthusiastically. I was feeling a little weak.

It wasn't that I had any real objection to being married. Actually, in light of last night, marriage had quite a bit to recommend it. It was just…marriage to Var that I wasn't sure about. Well, not that, exactly. Var—she was the only woman I had ever wanted. And I didn't want her marrying anyone else, either. My brain hurt.

"I need some food," I said, and sat down.

"Don't worry about it," Bombur was saying. "For some men, it takes a little getting used to. But it's up to the woman to choose her man. Var's a good woman, and I think you'll be very happy together."

Luckily, the food arrived. As I ate, I started to feel better. Marriage to Var…when we'd shared duties on the road, we'd managed quite well. And the escape from the Pony had been exciting. Overall, we made a pretty good team. And at night…well, maybe marriage to Var wouldn't be so bad after all. I had cheered up considerably by the time I got up from the table.

"So there you are, Dwalin," boomed a well-known voice. I looked up to see Thorin coming toward me, an uncharacteristic smile on his face. It was good to see him so happy, but still—how was it that everyone knew what was going on in my life almost before I did?

Nevertheless, I braced myself for his congratulations. "Thorin—"

He grabbed me in a rough bear hug. "Good news, my friend!" He stood back, holding me by the shoulders at arm's length, searching my face. He nodded. "Many have been lost to me over the years, many have forsaken me, but I know I will always be able to count on you."

"Yes. Always," I said, a little confused.

"I know we shall be successful, if Dwalin stands at our side," Thorin went on. His eyes were shining.

"I have spoken at length to the wizard Gandalf, and he has brought me new hope, new information. Now at last, the time has come—and my heart's burning desire is about to become reality. Dwalin, my oldest, most loyal friend! Tell me you will be by my side as I begin the quest to take back Erebor."

I stood frozen, staring at Thorin. My comrade in arms, the healer of my wounds, my closest friend. My King.

Thorin's smile faded just a little, and he gave me a curious look. "Dwalin?"

"Always, my liege," I said hoarsely.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

I didn't know what to say to Thorin at that point, so we sat down and started drinking. He was full of plans and schemes and at that point the dwarves I'd brought up with me from the South were eager to go anywhere and do anything Thorin asked them to. They were his liege men, now, and as rabid as any dwarven converts to a cause could be—which is to say, completely and utterly devoted. He had that effect on people.

The whole quest thing reminded me that I had to make a decision about where my loyalties lay. Was I still Thorin's loyal liege man, or did I belong to Var now? It seemed pretty clear that, ceremony or no ceremony, she and I were now united. What did I owe to her? I didn't want to think about it, so I kept ordering more pints.

It worked. After a while, I wasn't thinking hardly at all.

Several hours later, I staggered up from the table. I wasn't worried and conflicted anymore. I knew everything would look clearer in the morning—or at least it would all stop spinning around. Getting drunk is sometimes useful, because it helps you realize that things like talking, walking, or even just standing up, are so much easier when you're sober.

But the drunken brain is also capable of throwing up strange and unexpected ideas. This time, my brain decided that it would be good to take a look at the wooden cart that held Aunt Nott's gold. A sentimental journey, in a way—I'd be visiting the object that marked the starting point of all my confusion.

So I went out to the stable where the cart was stored in an inconspicuous corner. Dark night had covered the land, but there was still plenty of light from moon and stars. Dwarves are used to the lightless depths of mines and caves, so night time above ground is comfortable to our eyes.

The dwarf assigned to guard the gold lay motionless on a pile of hay. It was Zigur, and he was unconscious. Alerted to danger, I crouched down and listened. A quiet rustle and clinking sounds followed. I moved cautiously around to the door of the cart, to see who it was.

The clinking stopped. A snap told me that the lid of the iron chest had closed. The creak that followed was the wooden cart door being shut. I saw a cloaked and hooded figure, oddly misshapen, turn in my direction.

The person only had time for a gasp before I attacked. We went down together. I was on top. I yanked back the concealing hood.

It was Var.

The alcohol I'd consumed had dampened my wits, I'm afraid. For a long, confused moment I sat on top of her, staring at her in astonishment. Slowly, more details seeped through: She was dressed for travel with a pack strapped to her back. That explained the odd outline of her shape.

She was robbing Aunt Nott's gold and making a getaway.

"Var?" I asked. Of course I knew it was her. But the ale was still working on my brain. Although I could think clearly enough, my power of speech wasn't working properly.

"Shhhh! Let me up!"

"No. Not gonna let you do this." In my mind, I reviewed our possible options. I had her, so Var hadn't gotten away with the robbery. If I pleaded with Aunt Nott, maybe she'd forgive Var and forget about the matter. Right. And maybe Mahal the Divine Smith, our creator, would flutter down on gossamer wings and sprinkle us all with gold and jewels. "Put it back and it will be our secret."

She stopped squirming and stared up at me. Her eyes were wide and dark, her expression bleak. "How do you know?"

"I heard you. I know you opened the iron chest. Put the gold back! No one has to know. We'll think of something. Please."

She seemed to relax. Her face softened, and she looked so sad. For a moment, I thought she was going to agree. Then her arm jerked, and something hard hit me on the head.

I woke up a while later. It was still dark out, but a pale light in the sky showed that dawn would break shortly. My head throbbed from the after-effects of the ale and from the blow, which had apparently been delivered with a wooden axe-handle that some idiot farmer must have left lying on the stable floor. Just goes to show that neatness counts—if people would only pick up after themselves, other people wouldn't get injured.

"Nine hundred and forty-five, nine hundred and forty six…" Someone was counting. I opened my eyes and saw that it was Nandi, Aunt Nott's majordomo, and he was sitting half-in the wooden cart. The gold pieces clinked as he slipped them through his hands.

Zigur was massaging a lump on his head. He looked at me. "Did you see who it was?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed the burning lump that rose in my throat. Var. The light of my life; the blade in my heart. Oh, Mahal, what had she done?

"One thousand. Strange. It's all here," Nandi said. "None of the gold is missing."

I frowned, but traitorous hope leapt in my chest. Maybe there would be a way to protect her. Mahal furku, why would I want to protect her? I owed her nothing. She had used me. I shouldn't let her take me for a fool—I should tell Aunt Nott everything. I should tell Nandi right now.

Nandi turned to me. "What happened here?"

I shook my head. "Not sure. My head hurts." My head did hurt. I felt like retching up my own guts. Liar—I was a liar, and the lie burned like acid inside my chest. Staggering to my feet, I headed for my room.

Nandi nodded. "Well, it looks like no harm's been done. Get some rest. We'll talk it over later."

I went upstairs and curled up on my bed. I couldn't sleep, couldn't quiet the thoughts that buzzed and stung like angry bees. She should have killed me—it would have been a kindness.

After a while, the door to my room creaked open, and heavy footsteps sounded on the floorboards. Good, I thought, maybe it's those Dunlending bandits come to finish me off. If they did, I wasn't going to argue with them.

A heavy body landed on the seat of an upholstered chair. Thorin's deep purr sounded. "So, I understand you're to be congratulated."

I snorted. Right. Congratulations to lucky me.

"Something wrong? Already?" He chuckled a little under his breath. I heard a scrape, like boots sliding along the floor, and a creak from the chair as he settled into it. "Mind telling me about it?"

"Yes, I mind. It's complicated." I still didn't turn over, or look at him. I waited.

He sighed. "Anything you tell me, stays between us. You know that. No matter what it is."

I rolled over and looked at him. Sat up. Too fast. The hangover slammed into my head, so I rested my elbows on my knees and pressed both hands against my temples. It seemed better to get it out quickly. "I found Var raiding Aunt Nott's chest of gold. She hit me on the head and escaped."

Thorin raised both eyebrows and turned down the corners of his mouth. "Not good."

He seemed to expect more, so I said, "She was dressed for traveling. I caught her just as she was finishing up, but…I hesitated and she knocked me out."

He looked down at his fingers, which were laced together in front of him, and nodded. "Walk me through everything that happened, step by step."

I did. It was a relief to get it all off my chest. I answered all his questions, even the embarrassing ones about my night with Var. He seemed a little surprised that we hadn't taken off the handcuffs, considering that I did have the key somewhere. I explained that finding the key would have meant going through all my clothing, which was mostly tangled up on the floor, so it had been easier and quicker just to use one hand each.

One of the good things about Thorin is that he knows when not to laugh. It was probably hard for him not to, but he managed. At the end he asked, "So Var had already closed the chest and the door of the cart before you tackled her?"

"Yes. She was turning to leave."

He stared at me hard. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I repeated. "I didn't know who it was until—" It finally dawned on me that he thought I was lying. That maybe I'd come upon Var a little earlier than I'd said, and convinced her to leave the gold and get away with a whole skin.

He saw my expression change, because he said quickly, "I trust you, Dwalin. But I don't trust Var. I can tell how you feel about her."

I shook my head. "No. You don't. I don't even know what I feel about her, so how could you?"

He nodded and gave me a twisted half-smile. "I see. Well, let's consider what we know. She opened the cart, opened the chest, but didn't take any of the gold. Was there something else of value in there?"

"I didn't see anything but gold, but I didn't look too closely," I confessed. "I only opened the iron chest once, right at the start. Just to make sure we weren't rescuing an empty box."

"So she might have taken something else." Thorin rubbed his chin. "But, now what is she up to?"

I shrugged, completely out of ideas. She was gone. Apparently my brush with love and marriage was over. My head and my heart felt hollow and empty. I looked at Thorin and sighed heavily. "So, what's this about a quest to take back Erebor?"

His eyebrows drew together, and he got to his feet and came to sit beside me on the bed. He flung one arm around me, and with his other hand roughly pulled my head to his shoulder. "You fool, do you think I would let you come with me, knowing how you felt? Go after her. You owe it to yourself to find out what is going on. Hell, you owe it to me—how can I lean on my Dwalin, if his heart and soul are torn apart?"

Okay, maybe I shed a tear or two at that point. It's all Thorin's fault; he gets people all worked up emotionally.

He went on, "I need to return to Ered Luin to raise as many dwarves as I can. I'm hoping for a sizeable army—maybe the clans from the Iron Hills will join us, too. They are frightened by the dragon, to be sure, but there's a wizard on our side, now. A wizard! Surely they'll all see that if one of the Istari back our cause, we will be successful."

I nodded.

Thorin looked at me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "But raising recruits will take me some time—a month, at least. Go after Var, find out the truth. Set your mind at rest concerning her. Then join me at the meeting place that Gandalf has set."

As I prepared to follow Var, my thoughts were full of gratitude and love for my friend and King. Never have I known a wiser, kinder, truer dwarf than Thorin. I owe him more than I can ever repay.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Dwarves are at home deep in the earth, in our caverns and mines. Underground, I can use scent, sound, and the slightest vibrations of earth and air to track anyone who seeks to hide from me. But out in the fields and forests with their riot of noise and color, wide open to the endless blue vault of sky overhead, following someone is a bit more challenging.

Not impossible, of course. Sometimes it's as easy as stopping a farmer and asking if he'd seen a dwarf pass by. Farmers always notice strangers, and despite their suspicions they are often willing to provide information that will make an outsider go away. They become especially willing to help when you promise to make an outsider stay away. So I pretended to be a thief-taker and assured them my quarry would be locked up for good, if only I could catch up to her.

It seemed that Var was heading for the Tower Hills. She was moving fast and resting only briefly, but I could tell by the remains of her small campsites that I was gaining on her. If my luck held, I would find her within another day.

But why was she going there? The Tower Hills lie west of the Shire, near the sea. The place got its name because the elves built three tall towers there, probably so they could conduct some weird elf magic. Smart dwarves would give the place a wide berth. I had no idea what kind of dwarf Var was, anymore.

On the third day, I found her. I almost blundered right into her, pushing my way through the bushes all leafed out in fluffy green spring foliage, twigs crackling endlessly beneath my boots. This is the trouble with trees—they're always shedding branches and throwing out roots, causing a racket and tripping you up, and making it impossible to creep up on someone.

I crouched behind a tree as she knelt by a forest stream, drinking out of her cupped hands. She took off her traveling pack and rummaged through it, removing something. When she turned, she held a dagger and something wrapped in cloth. With the dagger, she scored a rune in the bark of a tree. Then she sat down at the foot of the tree and unwrapped the cloth. It held some bread and a bit of cheese.

It was only polite to let her finish her meal before I confronted her. I wasn't just watching her to watch her. There's not much opportunity to learn a person's deepest secrets just from the way they chew their food. Besides, her head was hanging down, so I couldn't see her face very well. Her shoulders were hunched in, her elbows resting on her knees. She wiped the back of her hand against her eye. I guess she was tired. I knew I was.

When she was done, she packed up the dagger and the cloth, and slung her pack on her back. She started walking in my direction. When she got close enough, I leapt out and grabbed her, twisting her arm into a secure arm-lock.

"Hello, Var. Going somewhere?"

She shrieked and struggled. I had her pinned to me, her back to my front, with her one arm twisted up behind her. It was tricky to hold her without doing any damage—I hadn't had much experience in the non-damage-doing area, and she was fighting me with every bit of strength she had. Her comments were mostly along the lines of, "Let me go," "Stay away from me," and "Why have you followed me?"

I answered the last one. "You owe me an explanation."

"That's the last thing I can give you," she said, panting. She was wearing herself out, kicking her heels at my shins and throwing her head back in a futile attempt to connect with my nose. "Why couldn't you just leave me alone? I told you I was trouble. Why can't you listen to me?"

"Tell me why you're so much trouble. Just explain it, and I'll go." I didn't bring up the matter of our night together. Somehow, it didn't seem gentlemanly. "What's so difficult about that?"

She went limp, letting her head fall back against my chest. I could see tears sliding back towards her temples. "Because you can't know. The fact that you don't know is the only thing that can keep you safe. Keep you alive."

"Right. Because if you told me what's going on, you'd have to kill me." I went a little heavy on the sarcasm there, but it certainly seemed justified. "Don't you think I can keep a secret?"

She swore. "No, you can't. Nobody can. Not against someone who can rip the thoughts right out of your mind. Not when it's someone who is ready to kill to keep their secrets safe."

That sounded a little melodramatic. But the world was filled with evil. Although I'd never experienced it, I was pretty sure that orcs and goblins got even bigger kicks out of torturing people than they did just killing them in battle. Even the toughest person could be made to reveal everything. "Then how are you safe, when you know this terrible secret?"

"I'm not. I'm not. And I haven't got much time left." She wasn't sobbing, but tears were falling fast and hard. Her body was soft and familiar as I held her pressed to me. "But I've got something I have to do. A promise to keep."

I could feel myself weakening, moved by her tears and her softness and my own foolish desire for her. Not good, as Thorin would have said. I tightened my grip on her. "Well, too bad. You'll just have to do it with me by your side."

A sharp point dug into the back of my neck, and a new voice spoke behind me. "And what have we here?"

I froze as a dozen elves materialized around us, bows drawn. I could see the light glinting off the arrowheads as they aimed at us from point-blank range. They were all tall and sinuous, with long straight hair falling from the tops of their heads but hairless everywhere else. A couple of them had silver circlets on their brows. Somehow, elves always reminded me of snakes—maybe not all bad, but definitely not warm and fuzzy. Just our luck to be discovered by a patrol of elves.

Then Var spoke in a commanding tone. "Please, I must speak with Poldor. My need is urgent. Tell him that Var, the daughter of Gamil, seeks his aid, according to the promise he made long ago."

The arrow points wavered a little at that. A murmur ran around the group—they evidently knew this Poldor. And so did Var. My heart dropped into my boots.

"You're in league with elves?" I released my hold on her. There didn't seem to be anything else I could do, if these were her conspirators. I could probably have fought them, but there didn't seem to be much point.

She glared at me. "I told you to leave me be." She stepped back, rubbing her shoulder. Well, I had been twisting her arm. But not very hard.

The arrow-point dug into my neck again. The voice behind me said, "What shall we do with this one?"

"Shall I kill him?" said a blond elf in front of me, drawing his bow-string tight. He was aiming right at my heart. At that moment, I was almost too fed up to care. Anything, even death, would be better than the pain and sheer exasperation I felt.

Var flung herself in front of me. "No! Don't hurt him!"

"Oh, stop it," I growled, pushing her out of the way. "He'd be doing me a favor."

She turned and looked me in the eyes. When you're going to war, and you're saying goodbye to someone you'll never see again, you look at them in a certain way. You try to see everything about them, not just what they look like but who they are to you, the times you've spent together, all the memories good and bad. That was the way she looked at me, full of love and longing and the knowledge of loss. Whatever she was about to do, Var didn't think she would come out of it alive.

Mahal, I just wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled in her head. Maybe she didn't have to die. I could help her, if she would only trust me. Why wouldn't she let me in?

Then she addressed the elves as if she were their commanding officer. "He is coming with me."

The blond one shrugged and un-nocked his arrow, and the others formed up around us.

We came to one of the towers and mounted the stairs. Mahal, there were a lot of stairs, winding up and around the inside of the tower like a corkscrew. At the top was a small stone room, a study with a domed roof and windows all around, like a cave floating in the sky. It gave me the creeps.

The study was pleasant, as long as you didn't look out the windows. There were plenty of books and scrolls, quill pens and measuring tools, and lots of paper. Tiny mechanical toys, just like you'd see in a dwarven nursery, were strewn about. There was a small metal eagle with hinged wings that probably flapped up and down if you moved a lever. I saw another one that was just like a toy I had in my youth, a series of chutes and gears that could be set in motion by a small sphere rolling down its length.

There was also a decoration shaped like an anvil and forge in one corner. I decided it couldn't be a working forge, because there were no burns or dents or marks of any kind on it. Strange piece of artwork, but that's elves for you.

In an elegant armchair in another corner sat an elf with long ebony hair. He rose and came forward, dismissing the patrol with a gracious nod of his head. The patrol elves left, after giving me some ugly looks clearly intended to frighten me into being on my best behavior. I folded my arms across my chest and ignored them.

Holding his hands out to her, the elf said, "Var, daughter of Gamil. Namarie, my dear. It has been too long."

"Poldor," Var said, and flung herself at him, hugging his waist. Then she burst into tears. "Daddy's dead."

The elf looked mildly surprised, as if he'd suddenly noticed that he had an extra quill pen in his pocket. He patted Var's shoulder awkwardly, half in comfort and half in an effort to detach her weepy self from his smooth perfection. I didn't think he was the kind to appreciate tear-stains on his beautiful robes.

"I am sorry for your loss," the elf said. "Your father was my friend, and one of the most skilled smiths I ever knew. Sit down. Tell me what brings you here, for I see that there is more to tell. News of your father's death had reached me already."

She sat at his work table, her feet swinging a bit from the elf-sized seat. I hadn't been invited, so I stayed on my feet, positioned where I could watch both the door and the elf as he sat with Var.

"I know. But it's worse than that," Var said. She took a deep breath. "Poldor, before he died, my father told me you made him a promise, that if he or one of his own came to you for help, you would do whatever they asked without question or hesitation. Now, in the name of my father, I beg you to honor your solemn promise."

The elf nodded. "Of course I will, for the love I bore your father, and equally for my affection for you."

Var's wide blue eyes were pleading. "Then help me now, by giving me a draught of tamuril."

"What?" Poldor the elf nearly shouted. Instantly, I dropped into battle-ready mode. Whatever tamuril was, it wasn't good. "No! Why would you ask such a thing?"

Var's voice remained steady. "I am fully aware of what I am asking you to do. The burden is mine. I accept it. And I can give you no explanation. Please, please, do as I ask."

The elf was shaking his head. "No. There must be another way. This is madness."

"There is none," Var said.

Poldor turned to me, his smooth face purple with rage. "Is this your doing?"

"He doesn't know either," Var said. "I haven't told him anything."

"That's for damn sure," I said. "What is tamuril?"

One of the patrol elves appeared at the door. "Poldor, you have another visitor, a most distinguished one. Curunir himself has arrived."

Var turned white as chalk. Her voice was shaking with panic. "Poldor, if you love me, give it to me now. NOW!"

"You are a fool, Var," the elf replied angrily. He stepped to a shelf and took down a bottle of green liquid and poured some in a glass. "Very well then, if this is your choice. So be it, and may I be held guiltless of this crime."

She snatched the glass out of his hand and stared with loathing down into its murky green depths. Then she looked at me in despair.

"I love you," she said.

She drank it, and fell to the floor.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

With a curse, I threw myself at Var, hoping to catch her before she hit the ground. I gathered her in my arms and set her gently in the elf's armchair, sideways, so that her head was on one armrest and her legs draped over the other. Her face was pale.

I knelt beside her and tapped her cheek, but she was limp and cold. I glared at the elf. "What have you done to her? What is tamuril?"

Poldor shook his head helplessly. "She made me! It is a powerful poison, a potion—"

Blind murderous rage shook me. I launched myself at him, ready to kill him. But I didn't. Suddenly my body stiffened. I wasn't able to take a step, or to lower the hands that were stretched out in front of me, curved in just the shape needed to wring an elven neck.

A deep, melodious voice spoke from the door. "Poldor, my friend, whatever is going on here?"

Recovering some of his elven sang-froid, Poldor bowed gracefully to the figure in the doorway. "A misunderstanding, my lord Curunir. A dreadful misunderstanding."

I couldn't see the newcomer clearly, because my body was still frozen. But out of the corner of my eyes I caught a glimpse of him.

He was tall and stately, with a cascade of white hair that fell straight from the widow's peak on his forehead down past his shoulders. A long, hooked nose sat imperiously above an impressive white beard, and his liquid dark eyes glowed with intelligence and power. He wore shimmering white robes and carried a staff topped with a crystal orb set in a crown-like cage of black iron spikes.

He looked at Var, lying limp in the armchair and frowned. "That must be Var, the daughter of Gamil. Long have I desired to speak with her. In fact, I have come here today to speak with her in private."

His gaze traveled from Var to me, still poised in an attitude of attack, and the weight of his disapproval and sadness fell on me. But his question was addressed to Poldor. "What is wrong with her? Has this—dwarf—harmed her?"

Poldor shook his head. "No. She demanded that I give her tamuril as payment for a debt of honor that I owed her family. I am sorry to say that I did as she asked. She must have been out of her senses, to seek death in such a way."

Grief suffused the noble features of the man in white. "Var. Dead. Such a waste."

The invisible bonds that held me were suddenly released, and I nearly collapsed on the floor. I dragged myself to Var's side. "No. She can't be."

I didn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. I looked down at her face, the sweet soft lips, delicate eyelids closed over her bright blue eyes, the spun gold of her hair. How could she leave me, when I needed her so much? I touched her face and neck, cold with the familiar chill of death. Shock was beginning to numb my senses, making me feel cold as well.

Curunir the White was speaking to Poldor. "What reason did she give for this rash act? What did she tell you, to convince you to keep her from me?"

"No, that was not the way of it, Curunir," Poldor protested. "She refused to explain herself—and she did not have to, because I had promised to aid her without question."

"We shall see if you are speaking the truth," said Curunir, and raised one arm from the shoulder, fingers extended toward Poldor's forehead. He frowned at the elf.

Poldor gasped and writhed. The elf's eyes seemed to start out of his head, glazed with pain, and he jerked helplessly in an unseen grip. He cried out, "My lord, I have not lied to you! Please! This cannot be the way of the Istari."

Curunir's fingers wiggled and Poldor collapsed, sobbing, onto the stone flags of his study. The man in white stared down at him. "Do not presume to tell ME the way of the Istari. You are lucky, Poldor, that you have spoken naught but the truth. There have been others who have sought to deceive me. They were not wise to try."

Then the Istar, or wizard, turned to look at Var, lying on the chair like a beautiful broken doll. For a long moment he considered her, and then his eyebrows twitched up. He swung his gaze to me. "Who are you? And what do you know of Var's schemes?"

I just stared at him. It seemed safer that way—the less I said, the better.

"Very well then," he said with a sigh. He reached out his hand, fingertips outstretched toward me just as he'd done with Poldor.

A vast and powerful awareness pressed painfully against my mind, tearing its way into my thoughts with crushing force. My will crumbled under the overwhelming onslaught of the wizard's mind. Everything I knew, everything I had heard, seen or experienced, lay open to him. There was nowhere to hide. Every hint, clue and scrap of information I had was in his power. What I knew about Var, who she was, what she'd told me, and what she wanted—he had only to look inside me and he would know. And he began looking.

I could hear myself groaning, feel my body twisting in a futile effort to escape. But he was in my mind. My body was unable to rescue me. I flailed my arms helplessly, and one hand touched Var's cold, immobile skin. I knew it was her, and I held on.

Var. My Var—mine, all mine, no matter what or who she was. From the instant I'd first held her in my arms, she had been mine. Not his. She, and everything I knew about her, was mine and not this smooth wizard's property to despoil.

I could feel the wizard's mind slithering among my thoughts and memories, calling up words, ideas, and thoughts. Not feelings—he passed over every instant of leaping joy, every icy stab of anger and desolation. It was information he sought. So I ranged through my memory, calling up every sensual image I could: the sound of her voice ordering the others to set up camp; the sight of her bathing in a forest stream; the fiery feel of her lips on mine.

As I filled my mind with everything I felt for her, love, frustration, admiration, and desire, I felt the wizard's mind loosen its hold. I threw more feelings at him—terror and exhilaration as we jumped out the inn's window; the fury and pain of fighting off bandits; the pure ecstasy of wrestling passionately together on a bed.

The excruciating pain in my head vanished suddenly. I dropped, panting, face down on the floor.

The wizard's voice, heavy with contempt, spoke from somewhere high above me. "He knows nothing at all."

"Then there is no reason to kill him, my lord," Poldor said quickly.

Curunir snorted. "Very well, but your sentimentality does you no credit, Poldor."

A pause followed. I felt rather than heard the wizard come close to the armchair on which Var's body lay. "I wish I'd had the chance to speak with her. She had something I wanted. But what she knew of the matter died with her when she took the tamuril."

Fabric rustled as the wizard moved toward the door, then stopped. The dark melody of his voice sounded once more. "Pity the antidote for tamuril doesn't work on dwarves."

And then the wizard was gone.

I blinked. A tiny seed of hope unfurled inside me, and I looked up at Poldor. "Antidote?"

He spread his hands helplessly. "Curunir said it did not work on dwarves."

"But there is an antidote," I insisted. "So it looks like Var's plan was to take the tamuril, play dead, and then have you give her the antidote. Right?"

"Mayhap. But she never spoke a word about—"

"Oh, use your head," I snapped. "Of course, if she's being chased by an all-powerful wizard who wants her dead, the only way out would be to die. Apparently."

He shook his head. "Why would she not say—"

"She probably hoped you'd figure it out," I said patiently. For a centuries-old elven scholar, he wasn't making a very good impression on me at the moment. "Get the antidote. The least we can do is try it. No reason why Curunir would tell you the truth."

He nodded, and went to look on his shelves.

I furrowed my brow, and began thinking out loud. "What did she tell me? Bandits in Dunland, Rohirrim…and a dwarven jeweler who got a mysterious visit from an old man named Sharku who wanted to learn the secrets of the dwarven craftspeople. Hmmm. And then the jeweler died."

Poldor was clinking bottles around. "Gamil was a formidable gemsmith. But he was peculiarly obsessed with the spirit a talented smith could infuse in a gem. He believed that jewels were living things, in a way, and that one could actually place the essence of life itself in a gem and preserve it thus forever."

"I don't think Mahal would like that," I said doubtfully.

"Oh, it's quite impossible to make a stone come alive," Poldor said. "I told Gamil so, many times. He claimed that it was not so much a matter of bestowing life upon a piece of jewelry, as it was a matter of sharing one's own life-energy with the work. He said it is something we all do, whenever we make something new. We give it a piece of ourselves. Ah, here it is."

He showed me a small bottle with gooey black sludge inside it. I nodded, and he poured a spoonful or so between Var's teeth. We sat back. I stared at her face. Was it my imagination, or did she look a little warmer? I grabbed her hand, but it was still ice cold.

I kept thinking out loud. "Didn't the elves make rings that had powerful spirits in them? The essence of an entire race, hidden in a ring. So it can be done. Maybe Var's father was trying to do the same thing. And someone found out about his work and came sniffing around asking questions."

Poldor looked at me curiously. "If Var told you that someone had been visiting a dwarf jeweler in order to learn his secrets, then you already know enough to be dangerous to that person."

"Probably."

"I have heard that Sharku is another name by which Curunir is known. He has long desired power and knowledge," he said slowly. "He believes supreme evil can be fought only with supreme power. Perhaps he believes that the One Ring of Sauron might be countered by another Ring, of equal power."

"I thought that was just a legend," I objected. "I thought that Ring got destroyed long ago."

"Vanished, not destroyed," Poldor said. He was looking at me with a strange expression on his face. "If our guesses are correct, then the most learned and powerful of the Istari may be trying to create a Ring of Power for himself."

That was a scary thought. We stared at each other for a few minutes. Then I shrugged. "There are a lot of ifs and maybes and guesses in that sentence."

He frowned. "But if we can make those guesses, then others might be able to see the same pattern. And if Curunir's intention were to eliminate everyone who could connect him to this plan, then even the tiny scrap of information that you had—the fact that someone using the name Sharku had gone to a dwarven jeweler to learn esoteric secrets—might be reason enough to silence you, too."

"More ifs," I pointed out, uncomfortable.

"But how is it that Curunir did not see this in your mind? How did you manage to hide your thoughts from a wizard of such power?"

I shrugged. "Guess it was another one of those things that don't work on dwarves."

That brought my gaze back to Var's still, cold face. It looked like Curunir the wizard had been right—the antidote didn't work on a dwarf. Curse all this elven garbage, she needed something dwarven to bring her back to life.

Something dwarven. I jumped up and went to my traveling pack, and brought out my emergency flask of Aunt Nott's Mead.

"What are you doing? What is that?" Poldor asked.

"I just want to try this," I said as I tipped the contents of the flask down her throat. I lifted her shoulders up and thwacked her on the back to make it go down.

A moment ticked by. Nothing. A second, even longer moment passed.

Then she gave a huge, ragged gasp and started coughing and choking. I shouted in triumph and pounded her on the back again, just to clear her lungs. She was weeping and shivering, and I hugged her and stroked her hair. I couldn't stop laughing.

Poldor brought her a blanket, and we tucked her up tightly. It was a good thing that the elf was able to make some tea, too, because we all needed it. Ale would have been better, but I was too happy to care.

Late that night, after Poldor had shown us to a small guest room—it might have actually been an elven closet, because there were no windows, but that was fine with me—I held Var in my arms again.

I looked deep into her eyes. "Promise me you'll never, ever do that again."

She promised. I made her promise again later. And several more times after that.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

I lay in the quiet dark of Poldor the elf's tower room, with the warm soft weight of Var pressing against me. Felt the rise and fall of her rib cage under my hand. Listened to the soft exhalation of her breath as she slept. Knew she was alive and she loved me. All our problems were behind us now.

Well, except for the minor detail of the Quest for Erebor.

Thorin expected me to go—and of course I would go. He's my king, my best friend, a good man, and noble to the core. The bond between us is unbreakable, forged over the course of our entire lives and tempered in the blast furnace of war.

When Var woke up, I would tell her all this. Explain everything. No holding out, no cryptic references, none of that. Just the honest truth about how things were.

A knock sounded on the door. Poldor's smooth voice called, "Good morning. Perhaps you would like to break your fast before you departed?"

Var sat up with a gasp. "Oh, Mahal! How embarrassing." She flung the blankets back and sprang out of bed. The cold air rushed in, raising goose bumps on my skin.

With a sigh, I began pulling on my clothes. Our elven host was clearly ready to be done with us. As I tugged at my boots, I glanced over at her. She was fussing with her hair and muttering to herself.

Time to bring up the Quest. "Var, we have to talk—"

She patted the air in a quieting motion and whispered, "Please, can we talk later? I don't know what Poldor thinks about us, but let's not make things too difficult. He is an elf, after all."

I nodded. It wasn't that I cared what he thought about us, though Poldor was actually not too bad—I even liked him. In small doses. But if Var was going to yell at me, it would be better if there were no one around to hear us. I was pretty sure there would be some yelling involved when I told her about the Quest.

We had a typical Elven breakfast, some fruits and nuts and bread. I remembered to thank our host even before Var kicked my ankle.

Var rose from the table. "Poldor, I need your help for one last task."

The elf looked wary. I didn't blame him.

"It's not anything bad," she said impatiently. "Nothing you would disapprove of. Well, not very much, anyway. I just need you to look at something, after I've fetched it from where I left it in the woods."

Poldor gave in to her wishes, and we followed Var to the tree she had scratched the rune on. She dropped to her knees in the spot where I'd seen her eat lunch, and combed her fingers through the short grass between the roots of the tree. I frowned. I hadn't seen her bury anything. But she must have, because after a little hunting, she found what she was looking for. She held it up.

It was a gold ring, sized for Dwarven fingers, and deeply incised with a classic pattern. There was a simple grace about it, something hard to put into words—a stark elegance that somehow defined what it meant to be a dwarf. It was a feeling, not an idea, about dwarvishness, if you knew what I mean. Just looking at that ring gave me a feeling of satisfaction. Wearing it would have felt sublime.

I crossed my arms and looked away.

All Dwarves have a special appreciation for finely wrought gold. For us, gold is the embodiment of enduring beauty— gorgeous and glowing, soft and malleable, never subject to corruption or decay. In the hands of a true craftsman, raw gold can transformed into a work of art so enchanting that it might even be said to have a soul.

This ring had been created by such a craftsman.

"Blessed Aule," breathed Poldor, staring at the ring. "Truly your father surpassed himself in making this."

Var nodded wordlessly. Her eyes were full of tears as she put the ring in her pocket.

Poldor stared at the ground for a moment, then lifted his head to look at Var. "Now I understand. Come back to the tower. There is a service I must perform for you."

As we followed him back to his tower, I wondered uneasily what service he had in mind.

Several puzzle pieces fell into place during that short walk. So, this ring was what Var had taken from Aunt Nott's chest of gold. This ring was what Var had been prepared to die to protect—in fact, she_ had_ died to protect it. This ring was what that wizard had been seeking. That made it the most dangerous object I'd ever seen in my entire life. But I still wanted it; that ring had an allure no dwarf could resist.

Beside me, the elf walked with a frown on his face, both hands clasped behind his back. He was decent enough, for an elf, but that ring was too bewitching not to have stirred a flame of desire in his breast. Elf or not, I knew he wanted it too.

In the tower study, the elf held out his hand to Var. "May I hold the ring in my hand?"

Reluctantly, she placed it on his open palm. "This ring is my father's crowning achievement. He poured his very heart into making it. It is his legacy. As long as it exists, in some fashion my father is still with me."

I watched the ring pass from her hand to his. I had a really bad feeling about this whole situation. The hair on my body lifted the way it does when a thunderstorm is about to break overhead.

Poldor nodded to her and inspected the ring, holding it close to his face to catch the golden gleam that sparked from its angular surfaces. "Your father was truly a master craftsman. With this ring, he has almost achieved what Celebrimbor wrought ages ago in creating Vilya, Nenya and Narya, the three untainted elven Rings of Power. But this ring is…different. Perhaps it is too Dwarven for me to understand, but I feel its beauty and the spirit of the artist who wrought it.

"Ai! It pains me, but my duty is too clear."

The elf stepped to that strange forge-shaped artifact in his study, and threw the ring into it. A blast of heat struck me as he pumped on a bellows—the damned thing was an actual forge.

"No!" cried Var. She lunged toward her father's ring, now glowing red in the heart of the fire. She had her hand outstretched, ready to reach into the flames to pluck out the nearly molten gold.

I grabbed her and held her back before she could burn herself. "No, Var! Let it go."

"My father—" She was weeping and struggling in my arms. It was a good thing she'd gone for the ring first. Only the need to keep her safe had been enough to stop me from going after it myself.

Poldor shook his head, still working the bellows. "Your father meant for the ring to be melted down. Have you already forgotten the events of yesterday?"

In the heart of the flames, the beautiful ring was losing its shape. The proud angles softened and bent as it melted with a sound almost like a sigh. Then it was gone. An emptiness hovered in the air, like when someone gets up from their favorite chair and never comes back.

"Of course I haven't forgotten," she growled. "But today the wizard thinks I'm dead, and the ring is lost. You didn't have to destroy it!"

"If the ring were allowed to exist, he would soon learn of it—and you," Poldor said grimly. "The Istari are relentless in pursuing their goals. And Curunir would be wrathful indeed, if he learned that you had cheated him of his prize and lived."

The ring was gone, and its hold over me had disappeared. I hated to admit it, but Poldor was making a lot of sense. "He's right. The wizard would never give up and you'd never be free. Your father wouldn't have wanted that. You had to let it go, and move on."

"That ring was all I had left of my father," she said sadly. "Now he's gone. What am I supposed to do? Forget him? How does that work?"

She was still in my arms but not fighting me anymore. I sat in a nearby chair, pulling her onto my lap. "No. You never forget the ones you love. They're always there, just not in a particular thing. You'll hear a song, and all of a sudden they'll feel like they are with you. Sometimes all it takes is to smell a particular scent, like armor-polishing oil, and…well. You know you're not alone." Mahal, I was getting all sentimental. I cleared my throat.

Var shook her head. "I don't think that's enough. Not for me. I can't let go."

Poldor put up with us for a while longer, as Var calmed down. The elf had shaped the melted gold into a disk, which he gave to Var once it had cooled. It was the first time I didn't much care for gold—but perhaps that isn't so surprising, considering how beautiful the ring had been, compared to the shapeless lump it was now.

I tried to cheer her up as we left Poldor's tower. We were on our way home! Well, the Blue Mountains weren't exactly home, but they were somewhere to live. I knew mostly everyone there—Aunt Nott, all my cousins. The Longbeard clan. Family.

Soon Var would become a part of that family, too.

We traveled a good distance the rest of that day, and I even managed to find us a nice cave to camp in that night. I caught a few rabbits for dinner—which made a nice change from elven food. Maybe it was the scent of our dinner roasting on a makeshift spit, the balmy warmth of Spring, or the prospect of sleeping in such a pleasant shelter, but Var seemed to relax as the evening wore on.

We sat together on a fallen log in the gathering dusk. She turned the gold disk over and over in her fingers, but then she smiled up at me ruefully. "Everything I loved has been taken from me. It's not easy."

Tiny sparks flew upward into the midnight sky, dancing in ecstasy before they winked out of existence. This was going to be bad, but I had to get it out. I had to tell her now.

I took a deep breath. "Just so you know, when we get to the Blue Mountains, I'm going to—"

"No," she said, putting her fingers over my lips. "Don't talk about the Blue Mountains. I don't want to know about all the strangers I'll have to meet and the new life I'll have to start. Don't spoil this moment for me—let me enjoy the calm before the storm."

"I know, but I've got things I've promised—"

She laughed, and cupped my face in her hands again, smoothing her thumbs against my jaw the way she'd done in that nameless inn in Bree. It felt just as good as it had before, tender but filled with the promise of excitement that tightened my gut. "Just let me have this time alone with you, before everyone else comes in between."

She slipped off the fallen log we were sitting on and knelt between my legs. Her smile was wicked as her hands stroked down the front of my tunic and found their way to the laces on my trousers.

"Stop that." I batted her hands away, a little short of breath. "Be serious, will you?"

Her eyes flashed. "No. I won't." She reached up and grabbed handfuls of my tunic, drawing our faces together nose to nose. "I don't want to be serious."

My temper was slipping. I got angry then—angry at how guilty I felt, angry that she wouldn't listen to me, angry that I loved her and didn't want to leave her. But I would.

"Stop messing around and listen to me," I growled. My hands tightened on her upper arms and she winced. Mahal, I'd probably be leaving bruises there. "Once we get to the Blue Mountains, you're going to be on your own for a while. I've got other things I need to do, that you can't be involved in."

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, so you're going to drop me off like an unwanted parcel and go on your merry way? Do you think you're done with me?"

"Of course not!"

She lunged at me, damn near ready to bite. "You and I will never be done, Dwalin. Never."

"It's not about that. I'm just telling you the truth." I held her off, but she was squirming around so much I had to wrestle her into a full body hold to get her to stop. "I'm trying to do this nicely."

She was pinned under me, breathing hard and glaring up at me. "Nice? Just take what you want and leave, is that it?"

That did it. A red haze of anger filmed over my brain. "If I were going to take what I wanted, I'd do this." And I took her mouth with mine, hard and punishing, not even caring that I was biting her lips and stopping her breath. I dragged the sharp edges of my teeth along the underside of her jaw, making her gasp and buck beneath me as I savaged the delicate skin of her neck.

She was shivering and moaning. I ignored her protests, reaching one hand between us and yanked up her tunic to palm one generous breast. I knew she liked delicate touches, but this time I trapped her nipple between my thumb and forefinger, pinching it hard. She jumped and gave a strangled cry.

Guilt washed over me, and I lifted myself away from her. I didn't want to hurt her; I was going to hurt her enough as it was.

She clutched my hand to her breast. "Mahal! No, don't stop. Don't let go of me."

So I stroked the hurt away from her soft skin, which was glowing with sweat despite the mild evening. She was so soft, so completely in my hands, and the sensation of wicked power was delicious. She was mine; I would wipe the sadness from her. I would make her happy.

"If I were going to take my pleasure of you, I'd do this," I sat up and loosened the laces on the trousers she wore for traveling, pushing them down over her hips and off one leg. Then I kissed her belly.

She scooted away from me. "What are you doing?"

"Come back here," I growled, hooking my hands around her hips and dragging her back to me. Then I bent down to kiss her again, trailing a line of nibbles down to the dark thatch between her legs. I clamped my hands on her thighs, holding her prisoner as I kissed lower and deeper still.

She gasped as I licked her quivering flesh, held tight in my relentless grip. Her body tightened and shook. Just as I felt her reach the crest, I moved up her body and plunged deep inside her. As I moved, I watched her face, savoring the knowledge that I was the one who put that look of surprise on her face, that I was the one who forced those sweet lips into a grimace of astonishment. I reveled in my power over her as her body convulsed, her eyelids fluttered and her face relaxed into slack-jawed release.

Mine, all mine, she was mine. And the power and the dark hot pleasure of having, of taking, roared through me like dragonfire and I was consumed.

After I lay panting for a while, I said, "Thorin asked me to help him take back Erebor from the dragon. But with any luck, I'll be back as soon as it's over." Then I held my breath.

She didn't answer. Night had almost fallen and the fire was nothing but embers. I lifted myself up on my elbow to peer into her face, braced for any reaction: hurt, shock, icy anger. But I saw none of those emotions.

She had fallen asleep.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

If, by some caprice of Mahal the Maker, the road between the Tower Hills and the Blue Mountains had been caused to loop around in an endless spiral so that Var and I would spend the rest of our lives walking but never reaching its end, that would have been fine with me.

All the way through Eriador, up along the Lune River toward our destination at Ered Luin, Var and I talked, argued, and laughed. At night we made love, relishing our slow exploration of every inch of one another's bodies. I could touch her and make her laugh; stroke her and watch her shiver. It was magnificent.

Not a word passed between us about what would happen next.

But no matter how much we dragged our feet, at last they carried us to the settlement of the Durin's Folk in Ered Luin. Var seemed pleased to be back among Dwarves, and walked through the great central hall enjoying everything—the market stalls, the bustling crowds, the noisy taverns, and the stately facades of the Guildhalls.

But it was all too noisy for me. There was no escape from the sounds, the smells, the body-heat. Even the air seemed close and confining, although I knew the ceiling vault soared so high over my head I could not see it. I'd become accustomed to the vast blue of the sky and the wide carpet of green, and now the warmth and closeness of the dwarf halls felt suffocating by comparison. I gritted my teeth as people jostled against me while we walked through the marketplace.

"Oh, look at this, Dwalin," Var said, darting over to a weaver's stall. She stroked a length of red fabric stitched with gold thread, holding it up for me to see. The price tag was printed with a very large number. "What do you think?"

I shrugged. "Nice."

She rolled her eyes, a tiny show of exasperation that was evidently meant for me alone, and turned back to the weaver with a pretty pout. She put the fabric down. "Oh, dear! What a pity, but if my husband doesn't like it, I simply can't justify buying it."

"But I do like it," I protested.

Var frowned at me over her shoulder, her lips pressed shut.

The weaver, a snaggle-toothed old dwarf woman with a salt-and-pepper beard, jumped up from the stool she was sitting on and pointed at me. "But he does like it, Madam! He just said so. It's lovely fabric, very costly to make. Cheap at the price. It's your color, too. Buy it! Make that handsome lad smile when he sees you wearing it."

Handsome lad? My ears heated up with embarrassment. I never know what to do when women say these things. It's total nonsense, too. I'm 169 years old, hardly a lad, and have never been accused of being handsome—not even before I got the broken nose, the bitten-off ear, and various battle scars.

Var waved her hands in front of her face. "No, no, I can't. Seriously, I'm not interested."

I shook my head. Did she want it or not? "If you like it, buy it."

We weren't short of cash—Var had been managing our funds, and I was surprised to discover that we had much more money than I expected when we arrived in the Ered Luin settlement.

"You darling man!" Var rushed over to me and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me. Then she grabbed my face in her hands and whispered, "Would you please shut up? You're going to ruin everything. Just…look disapproving. Scowl for me. Please?"

The weaver was shouting at Var's back. "For you, Madam, half-price! You'll never find a better deal. Oh, Mahal, I can't believe I'm doing this, my children will starve, but for you, Madam—just call me sentimental. I love to see a lady who treats her husband right. Half-price, my final offer."

Var went back to the weaver, and I scowled as ordered. I probably looked only half-disapproving, since I was mostly confused, but it was the best I could manage. Why was she making such a drama out of a simple purchase? I could have bought an entire armory of weapons in the time she was taking to buy a single piece of fabric that she hadn't even wanted until the moment she'd set eyes on it.

Var named an even lower price, somewhere around one-third of the original number. The weaver howled. Var turned and walked away. Just as she reached my side, the weaver sagged back onto her stool and agreed to Var's price.

With a great show of reluctance, Var returned to the stall, paid the weaver and collected her parcel. The weaver shook her graying head, apparently mourning a sale that had yielded very little profit.

Var took my arm and hugged it as we walked away. Her eyes were shining. "What an absolutely glorious day this is," she said, and sighed happily.

"If you say so," I replied, and patted her hand.

The day ceased to be glorious as we entered Aunt Nott's offices in the Goldsmith's Guildhall. Aunt Nott was seriously displeased with both of us, on account of our southern-style marriage-in-fact.

Her office was very dwarven: Massive desk, huge plush chairs, opulent light fixtures dripping with jewels. In addition to her six bodyguards and Nandi, who was back in his usual butlerish black robes, she had a female dwarf companion in the room with her. I'd seen her before, a dull, serious woman with a face like a horse. Lady Ran was actually a noblewoman, very well-born and with plenty of the blood of Durin running through her veins, but she wasn't the type who made a positive impression. Today Lady Ran looked gloomy—or maybe her shapeless gray velvet robes just depressed me.

As I've mentioned before, female dwarves stay home, but that doesn't mean they don't stay busy. We men are miners and craftsmen and warriors, but for the most part we leave the boring organizational details to our mothers, aunts and wives. In or society, dwarven women handle the laws, business deals and social arrangements including marriage. As a bachelor who had never considered himself potential husband material, I'd never had a problem with that, but now apparently I'd run full-tilt into the murky, mysterious, and wholly female territory of dwarven marriage protocol.

Aunt Nott's face turned red, and she pounded on her desk. Behind her, Lady Ran's pale eyes darted from Var to me and back again as my aunt gave us a piece of her mind.

"I did not give my permission for this, Var," she roared. "He was supposed to be your bodyguard only. You had no right to take him as your husband without consulting me first. By Mahal, he's a member of my household. One of my own kin!"

Var stood straight-backed, chin up, hands on her rounded hips. Her blue eyes flashed and those pink lips curled into a sneer. "There were extenuating circumstances, Nott. Neither of us expected things to happen the way they did. But they did, and I don't regret it for a moment. Dwalin is my husband, and we'll just have to work out an agreement we can all live with."

Aunt Nott pinned me with a glare. "Dwalin, I'd like a word with you alone. Var, I trust that you will permit me to speak to my own nephew in private for a moment?"

"Is that really necessary?" Var asked. "Dwalin is not to blame for this." Her voice was calm, but she stepped to my side and gripped my arm in both of her hands, as if afraid someone were going to drag me away from her.

"It would reassure me immensely," Aunt Nott said. "And will probably go a long way toward reconciling me to this…irregular and possibly actionable behavior."

Slowly, Var let go of me. "I'll wait in the outer office for a few minutes, then." She gave me a look that was part-warning and part-plea, then turned and walked out.

The door clicked shut behind her. I waited, every bit as tense as I'd been the moment before we charged the goblins outside Moria. Aunt Nott narrowed her eyes at me.

"You idiot," my aunt said in a soft, deadly voice. "Didn't you listen to me, in Bree? I told you to BE CAREFUL!" Her voice rose to a shout on the last two words.

"I listened to you," I said indignantly. "You said, 'be careful.' You didn't say, 'don't rescue Var if armed assassins come bursting through the door.' At that point, I thought it might be nice for us to stay alive."

She shook her head in disgust. "Mahal protect me from fools. Didn't it ever occur to you that she might have planned all that, just to get you into her power?"

"No," I retorted. "She didn't plan all that."

"How do you know?" Aunt Nott inquired softly. Her return to that quiet and deadly tone of voice made me hesitate. What was this all about?

What was it always about, with Aunt Nott? Information. It suddenly occurred to me that she didn't know anything about Var's midnight visit to the chest of gold in Bree, or about her father Gamil's mystical ring, or the wizard who would have killed to possess it.

I decided she wasn't going to learn about those things. At least, not from me. I looked Aunt Nott in the eye. "Because I know Var."

She scowled at me. "Sentimental fool. Did she bed you?"

Behind Aunt Nott, her assistant, Lady Ran, shifted in her seat. The plain, gray-clad woman was watching me very closely, with a look that was almost like hunger. I got a sudden chill up my spine.

As I've said, I was never the prettiest fellow to begin with. Now I am well into dwarven middle-age, and although I'm physically fit and still have all my teeth, no one can look at me and not see that I've been through a few wars. But I am of Durin's line, related to the wealthy and powerful Nott, and perhaps that makes me eligible as a potential bridegroom.

So it seemed to me that danger lurked in this spacious, elegantly-appointed office. If I admitted that Var and I were lovers, then we would have a basis on which to claim we were married. But then, Aunt Nott would be losing a valuable asset, a bargaining chip in some future womanly business transaction: namely, me.

Of course, if Var wanted me, she would have to make it right with my aunt—to compensate her for having lost me. What Aunt Nott was really asking was, how much did Var want me? Had she bedded me often? If she had, she might pay more for the privilege of keeping me. I hated the idea of giving Aunt Nott such a negotiating advantage.

But if I pretended that Var and I had not slept together, then we couldn't claim we were married, even under the customs of the southern dwarves. And if I was not committed to Var, Aunt Nott could give me in marriage to the dwarf woman of her choice—and my guess was, she would probably choose Lady Ran.

I looked down at my boot toes. "We spent the night handcuffed together on a bed at that inn in Bree. We have witnesses to prove it. That's enough to qualify Var and me as committed in marriage. Isn't it?"

"No."

I sighed. "Yes, we made love. Often."

My aunt growled and frowned down at her hands, fingers laced, in front of her.

Behind Aunt Nott, Lady Ran seemed to shrink into herself. I felt bad. Here was someone who I'd managed to hurt, without even knowing I was doing it. I didn't much care for her, and certainly never expected that she'd be interested in me, but that didn't mean I was insensitive.

Then Lady Ran rose to her feet. I tried to catch her eye, send her a look that would express my regret. But I could have spared myself the self-reproach. When she lifted her gaze to mine, her eyes were blazing with anger.

Lady Ran spoke, but not to me. "I'll contact you later, Nott." Then she stalked out of the room.

If my ears had been burning before, now my whole head felt like it was on fire. All I wanted was to be out of that office, out of that guildhall, out of everywhere—just go far, far away. Was there a reason why I preferred fighting in wars and going on quests and just generally putting a large distance between myself and my own people? Why, yes. Yes there was.

Aunt Nott glared up at me from beneath her white eyebrows. "I hope you're proud of yourself, laddie."

Var walked into the office through the door Lady Ran had left open. She came over to me and stroked my arm. She whispered, "Don't worry. I'm proud of you."

Then she turned to Aunt Nott, and they had a staring contest for a moment or two. Finally, Var said, "Whatever the deal was with Ran, I'll double it."

"No!" I said, shocked at this extravagance. In the marketplace, I'd seen how much Var liked to bargain closely. Why should she let herself be taken, even if it was by my own aunt?

"Triple," Aunt Nott said promptly.

"Well, Nott, I don't think you understand my position here," Var purred, pulling a chair up opposite my aunt and sitting down with her elbows on Aunt Nott's desk.

My aunt's white eyebrows rose high on her forehead, and she leaned forward on her own elbows, matching Var's posture. "Oh, but I think I do understand, Var."

Nandi the butler left Aunt Nott's side. "Come on, Dwalin. Let me get you a mug of ale."

"But," I said, pointing at the two women as he took me by the arm.

"Don't worry. They'll work it out." He led me out of the room. "It's easier not to be there when it happens, though. In the meantime, Thorin Oakenshield has asked that you join him. He's holding a meeting of some sort. Got a wizard with him, I believe."

I tensed. "A wizard?"

"Someone named Gandalf, I hear. The meeting is taking place right now in Thorin's Hall. Go on," Nandi said. "I'll let Nott and your lady know where you've gone."


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Thorin's Hall in Ered Luin was a big cavern of a place. At one end of the Hall, there was a dais occupied by a massive table. Around the table sat several dwarves, a wizard and Thorin Oakenshield.

By the time I got there, the hall was full of Longbeards, Firebeards and Broadbeams, standing with their arms crossed and feet planted wide. Every face, whether it belonged to a merchant or a ragged miner, wore an expression of wary interest.

Thorin stalked back and forth on the dais, roaring at the crowd.

"Dwarves of Ered Luin! Many of you never knew the glory that was Erebor. But know this: Erebor was the jewel in the crown, the most magnificent kingdom in all Middle-earth. Our halls shone with gold and gemstones. We traded on profitable terms with the Men of Dale. Even the Elves bowed to us in respect. Peace and prosperity! And no dwarf, anywhere in the kingdom, lacked for any good thing."

An approving murmur spread through the listening crowd. Of course, everyone knew the story. The young ones had grown up with it, the strangers had heard the songs about it, and some of us had even lived through it. Stories and songs are in our Dwarven blood, every bit as much as gold.

"Then, news of our prosperity—of our vast store of gold—came to Smaug the Terrible, the chiefest calamity of our age. The ancient, powerful and greedy worm blasted into our peaceful home, killing and destroying everything that stood in its path."

At the mention of death and destruction, some of the dwarves who had been listening sidled toward the door. A few more were shaking their heads and shifting from foot to foot. But still, a sizeable number stayed put.

"Many did not survive that day," Thorin continued. "Many more, from the frailest grandfathers to the youngest daughters, died in the harsh years that followed. Everything we loved was cruelly taken from us. And we were cruelly abandoned by those who had once claimed to be our friends."

On the dais behind Thorin, my brother Balin coughed. I'd heard that cough before and knew it meant "Oh, no. Not the elf thing again. Don't get sidetracked." Thorin knew it, too. He shot my brother a sidelong glance.

I moved toward the front of the room and took a seat at the table on the dais. I nodded to my brother Balin, and cousins Oin and Gloin. Across from me sat Thorin's young nephews Kili and Fili. I frowned at them; weren't they a bit young for this quest business? Kili stuck his tongue out at me, the little pest.

I pointed at Kili and mouthed, "Later."

Thorin took Balin's hint and didn't give his usual speech about untrustworthy elves. "But now, the omens are in our favor. The dragon has not been seen for sixty years. The ravens are returning to the mountain. Our enemy may be weak, or even dead for all we know. Now is the time for us to strike—now is the time to take back Erebor!"

The dwarves in the hall cheered. Thorin nodded at them in regal acceptance of their acclaim.

Then the wizard Gandalf, the scruffy gray fellow I remembered seeing in Bree, spoke up. "Spoken like a true king, Thorin. But Erebor is a long way from here, and at this distance, it is very easy to underestimate the strength of a great Dragon."

A number of dwarven feet began to shuffle. Gold was a powerful lure, but it was no good to a dead dwarf. In the wake of Gandalf's discouraging words, more listeners slunk out. I could see frustration in Thorin's face—he saw them leaving too.

The wizard was talking again. "But that is not all: there is a Shadow growing fast in the world which is far more terrible than Smaug. Worse, the Dragon and the Shadow will help one another. Open war would be quite useless. You will have to try something simpler and yet bolder, indeed something desperate."

"Oh, really," said Thorin. "What would that be?"

"My point is, you're going after a very old, very cunning Dragon. So keep these two things about him in your mind: His memory, and his sense of smell."

"Thanks for that. Tell us something we don't know," Thorin said with a snort. I nodded. Who did that wizard think he was talking to? Nobody knew dragons like we dwarves did—more's the pity.

Thorin rolled his hand impatiently. "Go on, what is your idea?"

Gandalf spread his arms wide. "Stealth! You can't overwhelm the dragon with force, so use stealth. Also, you need someone whose scent isn't known to Smaug. He knows what dwarves smell like. He knows everything about your people. He lives in the home of Dwarves, he sleeps on the gold of Dwarves—he dreams of Dwarves. He would know if any Dwarf set foot anywhere within the mountain."

My brother Balin had been staring at his hands, which were folded in front of him. Now he looked up. "Then stealth won't work either. Sneaking up on a dragon sounds impossibly difficult."

"Difficult, but not impossibly difficult," Gandalf answered. "Just absurdly difficult. So I am going to suggest an absurd solution to the problem. Take a Hobbit with you! Smaug has probably never heard of Hobbits, and he has certainly never smelt them."

Groans of exasperation and disappointment sounded all around the table. I looked out into the audience, which was looking a bit sparse.

Hot-headed Gloin jumped to his feet, spluttering, "What? One of those idiots from the Shire? Who cares what a Hobbit smells like—a hobbit wouldn't dare come within a hundred miles of any dragon!"

I was in complete agreement with Gloin. All the other dwarves around the table nodded, too. Absurd was right. Some help this wizard was turning out to be—the crowd thinned out some more.

Gandalf argued for a while about Hobbits and their good points. What a joke—he didn't offer any proof at all. No tales of Hobbit bravery in battle, no examples of the extraordinary qualities of Hobbits. Just some vague ideas about seeing what developed when you put them under pressure. Nobody in his right mind would undertake a quest on that basis. And yet he wouldn't budge from his ridiculous idea of a stealthy Hobbit.

"You've got to be joking!" shouted Thorin, stomping around and swearing under his breath. He knew as well as I did that he was quickly losing Dwarvish support for the quest. "This is not advice, it is nonsense."

"Yeah," I said. Well, I know it's not much of a contribution, but talking and negotiating have never been my strong suit.

Gandalf frowned, looking more stubborn than ever. "This Hobbit is special. He's just as good as any dwarf. He has plenty of gold ornaments, eats with silver tools and drinks from fine crystal."

"Oh! I get it," said Balin, who has always been quicker than anybody else. "He's a thief! Well, that would certainly be useful."

"Right, a thief," said Gandalf sharply. "Of course, he must be a thief, if he's a Hobbit who's got gold and silver, right? That's how you Dwarves think. And considering how many good things he's got, he must be a professional thief."

Thorin looked doubtfully at the wizard. I nodded, thinking that finally the wizard was making sense. A thief—yes, they were stealthy. That part seemed logical enough. And a dwarven thief wouldn't work because of the scent problem, so…maybe a hobbit burglar would work.

But Thorin shook his head, dismissing the idea.

Gandalf got to his feet, looming over the group. Around him, the air seemed to darken and roil with power. He glared down at us, suddenly not just a scruffy human man but something far more: the focus for a vast, incomprehensible energy that could snuff out all our lives in a blink of an eye. A shiver of remembered fear swept over me. One run-in with an Istar had been more than enough for me, thanks very much.

"Listen to me, Durin's Folk! If you persuade this Hobbit to join you, you will succeed. If you do not, you will fail. If you refuse even to try, then I have finished with you. You will get no more advice or help from me until the Shadow falls on you!"

The dwarves around the table sat frozen, staring in terror at the wizard. Then Gandalf looked around with an irritable scowl, and shrank back to his normal Man-size self. He harrumphed and settled back into his seat.

The fear that had overwhelmed me faded to a few uneasy prickles, and I breathed normally again. If you think my reaction to an Istar in the full exercise of his power is a sign of cowardice, you don't know what you're talking about. Anyone who isn't afraid of them is either stupid or dead. Or likely both, in quick succession.

After Gandalf sat down, Thorin gazed long and hard at the wizard. Finally, he nodded. "That was no ordinary speech. Your words have the ring of prophecy about them. Very well, we will do it your way."

The wizard made a few more grumpy remarks, trying to make sure that we wouldn't all show up at the Hobbit's hole just to laugh and point.

"Fine, fine, that's enough," said Thorin. "I gave my word we'd let the Hobbit join the quest. I just don't like being made a fool of."

So Gandalf said that he had some other business to take care of, but he would be back within a week so we could all head out to fetch the Hobbit. Then he left, and the dwarves who were left breathed a sigh of relief.

I looked around the Hall, and my heart sank. Of the large crowd that had filled the room, we were left with only the group on the dais, and the half-dozen dwarves who had been with us in Bree: brothers Nori, Dori, and Ori, and the three miners Bifur, Bofur and Bombur. Worried, I looked over at Thorin.

Thorin Oakenshield gazed around himself at the pitifully small group that remained. His face was bleak, etched with despair. We were the only loyal ones—a mere dozen dwarves, some too old to fight and others too young to throw themselves away on what would surely amount to a suicide mission. I knew what he was thinking: He had failed even before he'd begun.

Only a dozen dwarves, daring to face an enemy that had wiped out a kingdom. It would never work. But destiny was driving Thorin down this fatal road. He would burn in the end, as would we all, perishing by Smaug's fiery breath. He knew it. This was his doom: he knew he was leading us to our deaths, but he could not give up the quest.

And here's my doom: I will always be at his side.

Staring at him, I rose to my feet and placed my right fist over my heart. "You are my king, Thorin Oakenshield, and I will serve you any way I can. Whatever you ask of me, I willingly give. Wherever you lead, I will follow, to victory or to death."

The other dwarves spoke up in a chorus of agreement. Thorin stepped over to give me a hearty embrace. His eyes were filled with warmth, gratitude, and even a tear or two. Hell, turnabout's fair play, and he did it to me in Bree. I gave him a thump on the back.

A commotion of sound at the other end of the Hall made us all turn. In the doorway stood Thorin's sister Dis with a thunderous scowl on her face. Slightly behind her lurked Lady Ran, looking more spiteful than I'd ever seen her.

In front of both women, lips pulled back into a snarl and fury blazing in her eyes, was Var. Her rage pierced me like a flaming arrow.

In a low, controlled voice she asked, "Just what do you think you're doing?"


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Var's glare was hot enough to burn a hole through my head. Her hands were gripping her hips as if she was trying to keep them from leaping up and wrapping themselves around my neck.

"You and I are going to have a little talk," she growled.

I nodded.

She probably hadn't even noticed the interested looks we were getting from the other dwarves gathered in Thorin's Hall—at least, from the dwarves who weren't watching Thorin's sister Dis.

"Fili! Kili!" barked Lady Dis. They approached their mother warily, looking both defiant and ashamed. Then Dis shifted her furious gaze to her brother, and her voice dropped to a deep snarl. "Thorin."

Thorin Oakenshield, proud and stubborn King in exile, crossed his arms and glowered at his sister. But when Dis grabbed her sons by their ears and marched out of the Hall, he followed.

As they left, Lady Ran commented to nobody in particular, "I just thought the ladies might like to know." I could hear the smirk in her voice.

Var shot her an irritated glance, then turned to leave.

Naturally, I followed her. There was going to be no way to get around this. We would just have to have it out. The other dwarves looked alarmed, so I gave them a nod and a reassuring wave. Gloin, a married man, nodded back.

I followed Var out into the corridor. "I tried to tell you, but you never gave me a chance to explain."

"Not here," she said out of the corner of her mouth, and kept walking. I followed her through the Great Hall of the settlement to one of the more elegant inns, The Mithril Mattock.

The room she took me to was draped with dresses in shades of crimson, Var's favorite color. Her traveling pack stood in a corner. There was no sign of my gear anywhere.

I frowned. "Is this our room?"

"It's my room," she answered shortly. Her emphasis on the word "my" spoke volumes. Clearly, I wasn't staying here.

Anger exploded in my brain. I took a step closer and jabbed my finger at her. "I would have told you about the quest when we were at Poldor's, but_ you_ didn't want to hear it. I tried to tell you when we were on the road, but _you_ put your hand over my mouth! Mahal furku, if you wanted to know what I was going to be doing next, all you had to do was ask!"

She stomped her foot and threw her arms wide. "What am I supposed to ask, whether you've agreed to go on any suicide missions lately? Hello, darling, sign up for any doomed quests today? How dare you think about doing something like this without consulting me!"

She snatched up a bronze metal vase filled with tiny flowers made out of colored onyx and dashed it against the floor. Mahal, that was going to cost a pretty coin or two.

"What did you think?" I roared. "Did you think that from now on, I'd spend my life walking three paces behind you every time you went shopping or took a meeting?"

"I didn't expect you to leave me now." She collapsed, sitting on the bed with her head in her hands. Sobs racked her body.

I'd known this moment would come, and I'd known it would be bad. It _was_ bad. Guilt twisted like a knife in my gut.

I knelt down beside her. Softly, gently as I could, I said, "I don't want to leave, but I have to. I promised Thorin to share in this quest even before you and I were together in Bree. I know what I'm doing. I've gone on these types of missions all my life. This is what I'm good at. This is what I do."

She looked up at me, still furious, her eyes red with tears. "But you're not just you anymore. We are a couple now. And this isn't what WE do."

That knocked the breath out of my lungs. I sat back on my heels and stared at her. We—this was a new idea. Not myself anymore, but part of something else, some different arrangement…how had this snuck into my life without me knowing it? What was going on? I got to my feet and paced around the room.

Finally I stopped. Looked at her. "What do we do?"

She shook her head helplessly. She didn't know either—or else she didn't want to say what she really wanted. She probably thought I would hang around and take orders, like most dwarven husbands seemed to do. Mahal knew, I would never be able to do that. It would kill me quicker than any hopeless quest.

I just needed some time to reason with her. Some nights alone together, where we weren't so pressured by all these stupid rules and expectations, some time for just the two of us…and I could convince her to see things my way.

Time. I only had a week.

I sighed and looked around at the room. "So where did you leave my stuff?"

"Back in Nott's bachelor quarters," Var said, wiping her eyes and adopting a more businesslike tone of voice. "But that's not about this—quest thing. That's part of the deal I made with Nott. Technically, you and I are not married according to the dwarves of Ered Luin until an appropriate ceremony can be held, and until then Nott insisted that you remain in her household."

I stared at her in mounting indignation. "That's ridiculous."

She nodded. "But it will only be for a month. Then we can—"

"A month?" I asked, incredulous. "For the love of Mahal, what the hell do you need that much time for? The Company is leaving in a week's time for Erebor."

She jumped to her feet. "You can't be serious! You're not still going on that insane quest!"

I growled and stomped to the door.

"Come back here! Where are you going?" Var shouted after me.

"To see Aunt Nott and get this mess straightened out right now."

I stormed all the way through the Great Hall to the Goldsmith's Guildhall. As I entered the building, Nori and his two brothers appeared.

"Going to see Lady Nott?" Nori asked.

I nodded and kept walking.

"Thorin says we're staying in her household."

I glanced at the three brothers Ri. "Come on."

We all went up to Aunt Nott's offices. I knocked and entered without waiting, and nearly walked into the business ends of a pair of newly sharpened halberds.

"Mahal damn you, Dwalin, where are your manners?" barked Aunt Nott. She was sitting in her usual chair behind her enormous desk, and beside her stood my cousin Oin the physician. He held her wrist between three fingers. Aunt Nott waved her free hand at the guards. "Oh, just let him in, I needed to talk to him anyway. And who are these fellows with you?"

The pair of armed dwarves guarding the doorway drew back their weapons, scowling in disappointment. I looked from one to the other, surprised. I'd never seen these two before. Then I realized that Aunt Nott had company.

Two more armed guards flanked either side of the large divan that Aunt Nott had set against one wall of the office. Sitting—no, reclining—on this divan was a vision of female splendor. From her flaming ginger curls to her jeweled heels, this dwarf woman was decked in so much gold that she probably clanked when she walked. Chains of gold were threaded through her hair, gold beads hung from her delicate beard, a thick collar of gold circled her neck from jaw to collarbone, bracelets wound up her arms, and brooches and baubles were pinned to her gold-embroidered dress. She even wore golden ankle bracelets.

It took me a moment to notice the woman under the mountain of jewelry, but she was worth looking at all on her own: emerald eyes, creamy skin, rich red lips, and very full white breasts showcased between the gold collar and her low-cut bodice. She grinned at me, her eyes narrowing with evident amusement.

I looked quickly at my aunt. "Sorry. Didn't know you had a visitor."

"I would have mentioned it, you young idiot, if you hadn't come barging in here like a goblin on a rampage," Aunt Nott said. "In case you've forgotten, it's customary to wait until you're invited into someone's office."

Oin had apparently finished his medical examination, and was packing up his black bag, ignoring us all as he scribbled something on a piece of paper. He handed the paper to Nandi, hovering attentively in the background.

The gold-encrusted dwarf woman on the divan watched as Oin muttered some instructions to the butler. Her voice was sweet and dark as she spoke to my aunt. "Come visit one of my men sometime, Nott. I'm sure I could find someone who could get your old heart going."

Aunt Nott's butler Nandi stared at the woman reproachfully. I wondered, not for the first time, if there was something going on between him and Aunt Nott.

Oin closed his black physician's bag and muttered, "Oh, I wouldn't say that."

Aunt Nott looked up at the physician. "Wouldn't say what, Oin?"

Oin flushed a dull red. "Gloin's not an old fart. He's fairly young."

"No, Oin, never mind," Aunt Nott said loudly. She glared at Nandi and made a shooing motion with her hand. "And I'm not going anywhere, so don't look at me like that. See Oin out, would you?"

The golden one laughed. Raising her voice, she added, "You'd be welcome anytime, Oin. Stop in and let us take your temperature."

Ignoring her, Nandi ushered Oin to the door, both of them bowing and murmuring to one another as they exited. I had just turned back to Aunt Nott when I heard steel clashing against steel. At the door, Nori was facing the crossed halberds of the guards.

"Where are you going?" I demanded.

"Forgot something," Nori said, trying to duck around the guards. "See you later."

The woman on the divan spoke again. "Oh, dear. Another one leaving so soon? We can't have that. Let's see who this shy fellow is."

The two guards grabbed Nori and hauled him forward.

The woman leaned forward. She did clank when she moved. "Ah…Nofur, isn't it? What a pleasant surprise to see you again."

Beside me, Ori said, "But…"

"Shhh!" Dori grabbed his brother's arm.

Nori gave her a carefree grin, no mean feat when you're being held up by your armpits by two burly guards. "Yes, Madame. Nofur at your service. Nice to see you."

Aunt Nott leaned back in her chair and tapped one finger against her lips. "So, Virtue. You know this dwarf? That's more than I can say. I hardly know who my nephew has taken up with these days."

The woman's eyebrows rose as she gave me a lingering once-over. "The big one?"

Aunt Nott waved her hand and said, "Madame Virtue, may I present my uncouth nephew Dwalin."

Uncouth? That was harsh. I bowed to the oddly-named Madame Virtue. "At your service, Madame. And, Aunt Nott, may I present my companions, Dori, Ori, and uh,"

"Nofur," Nori filled in quickly.

"Right. Nofur. Well, Aunt, since you're busy, we'll be happy to wait—"

"No, no, don't leave on my account," said Madame Virtue. She smiled at Nori, showing all her teeth like a hungry gold lioness about to take a big bite of tasty dwarf. "I've heard good things about your friend Nofur here."

Nori's answering smile looked a little strained, so I intervened. "He's not staying. He's going on the Quest to take back Erebor. Thorin Oakenshield is leading us, and the wizard Gandalf is helping out."

She ignored me, and patted the divan. "Come sit beside me, Nofur. Make yourself comfortable."

Nori slid onto the upholstery next to her. She stroked his peaked and braided hair, and tugged lightly at his beard. I hoped he wasn't thinking of lifting any of the lady's golden ornaments—she probably wouldn't have liked that.

Aunt Nott turned her attention back to me. "Well, what is it you want, boy?"

"These three need someplace to stay until we go on the Quest," I said, pointing to them. "Can they stay with you?"

She nodded. "Stay with us, you mean. You're staying here too."

"No, that's the thing. I need to stay with Var. What is this month-long betrothal business?"

"Well, well," said Madame Virtue again. "So this was what it was all about. Nott, dear, did Lady Ran talk you into insisting on the full month?"

"Mahal damn it," my aunt swore. "Look, the standard betrothal period is a month, Dwalin. And, funnily enough, it's considered bad form for the groom to disappear before the ceremony."

I paced up and down, exasperated. "Who made that up? Var and I have been together longer than that. Can't I get time off for good behavior, and get married tomorrow? We're leaving in a week."

Smiling, Madame Virtue got to her feet, her gold jingling musically as she did, and took a little walk around me. She was fairly short and very curvaceous. Her hand trailed delicately across one of my arms, then over my chest and the other arm, and then across my back as she circled me. "The point is, dear boy, that someone is definitely trying to separate you from your beloved. And I think it's our little Ran."

Aunt Nott shook her head. "I can't believe Ran would do that."

"Well, what do I do now?"

Madame Virtue answered me. "You'd better convince Var to marry you quickly, so that you can go on your suicide—that is, your Quest—as a married man. And stay away from Ran."

"I've known Ran for years," Aunt Nott said. "She's a bore and rigid as a slab of granite, but she's never been underhanded before."

Madame Virtue shrugged, still looking me over as she addressed my aunt. "Maybe you just didn't stand between her and anything she really wanted before. But have it your way. Now, if we're done here, why doesn't Nofur come spend a little time with me?"

Nori jumped to his feet. "Quest."

"Don't worry, dear boy, I simply had a couple of little errands in mind for you. You wouldn't object to earning a little gold before you left on your noble quest?"

The thief's eyebrows lifted inquiringly.

Rising to her feet, Madame Virtue grinned at him and took his arm. "Well. I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. See you in a week, boys. Until later, Nott."

She swept out of the room on Nori's arm, followed by her bodyguard. I hoped Nori knew what he was doing. But then again, the spectacular Madame Virtue hadn't given him any choice. His brothers looked unhappy.

Ori burst out, "Who was that horrible woman?"

"Madame Virtue? She's a wealthy businesswoman," replied Aunt Nott. "Very wealthy. She owns a string of taverns and gambling-halls and, uh, other establishments. Now she wants to diversify her portfolio—expand into mining interests, possibly transportation services. That sort of thing. She came to me for advice."

"She's a criminal," Dori declared.

Aunt Nott sighed. "Well, never mind. If she said she'd bring your friend back, she will. She's reliable, I'll give her that—she's got a reputation for always doing what she says she'll do."

It seemed to me that it was time to get back to my problem. "But what about Var and me? Why can't we get married now?"

"Don't ask me. I'm not the marriage expert," Aunt Nott said. "I relied on Ran's advice, and if you don't want to ask her, you'll need to find someone else who can help you."

I groaned in frustration. "Who?"

"Try Fulla. She's good at these sorts of things." Aunt Nott scribbled some directions on a piece of paper and handed it to me. "She's married to Oin's brother, Gloin."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Never ask a dwarf for marriage advice.

Don't ask a male dwarf—if he's anything like Gloin, he'll just say, "Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight!"

And never, ever ask a female dwarf—if she's anything like Gloin's wife Fulla, she'll give you a long, well organized lecture with plenty of details and an analysis of applicable precedents. She made my head spin.

She said, "Listen to your wife. Bring her lots of gifts."

There was more, but I can't remember it off the top of my head. That's not a problem, though—Fulla made me take notes.

Gloin and Fulla lived in a pleasant home on a tranquil side street not too far from the Great Hall. They seemed happy together. Gloin's hair-trigger temper and tendency to shout at the least provocation didn't seem to bother Fulla at all. And whenever Gloin's gaze lighted on Fulla and the baby, he seemed to calm down a little.

Their baby son Gimli was a likely young dwarfling, barely old enough to bang his first hammer against his very own miniature anvil. His mother gazed fondly at him as she told me what a husband should do to promote maximum harmony in his married life.

I'd heard Fulla was a beauty, and she was: Raven-black hair, blue eyes and creamy skin, a lovely black beard framing her face and a full, sturdy figure with healthy muscles. She had that vibrant energy about her, a kind of natural glow that made you think that here was a woman who enjoyed her life. Zest—that's what she had. She made you think that nothing was impossible.

I raised the burning question.

"Oh, don't talk to me about that damned Quest," Fulla exclaimed. "Gloin and I had a battle royal over that one, I can tell you! We broke practically every piece of crystal in the house. Lucky for us we still had the pewter stuff from long ago."

She eyed the pewter mug I'd been drinking from. "Oh, Mahal, did you get one of the dented mugs? Gloin, I thought we were saving those for family use only!" She grabbed it away from me.

"I don't mind," I said, trying to take my mug back. "Ale tastes just as good in a dented mug."

"No! It's just not right." Fulla held it out of my reach. "I'll get you another one."

Gloin snatched it out of her hand and scowled at it. "What dent? I hammered out all the dents already!"

"It's fine," I roared. "Give it back and let me finish my ale."

Gloin handed it back to me. He didn't even seem to notice that I'd raised my voice. "Certainly, old fellow. Let me know when you're ready for more."

I turned back to Fulla. "So you no longer have a problem with Gloin going on the quest?"

"Of course I have a problem with it," Fulla said indignantly. "It's a crazy idea. But my parents came from Erebor. They never got over Smaug's desecration of their home. I know they would have wanted to see it taken back. Also, those crack-brains going with Thorin need an accountant, and Gloin's good at that."

She glanced his way. He puffed up proudly and said, "That's not all I'm good at."

Then the two of them traded a look that could have melted steel. She blushed pink as her generous bosom heaved, and he was breathing heavily through his nose. It was embarrassing as hell. I just wanted to find Var and…and…

Then Fulla was talking to me again. "Besides, Gloin assures me that there's a chance the dragon is dead or gone. And he's promised me that the Company is not going to confront the dragon head-on. They're just going to survey the situation from a safe distance."

I raised my eyebrows at Gloin.

He cleared his throat. "Of course, my darling. That's why we've got a wizard coming with us—to do the dragon-battling. Also, Gandalf will be bringing along a colleague. Someone with special skills."

They shared another one of those heated looks, so I glanced away and jotted down a few more notes. No direct confrontation, merely observation from safe distance—check. Wizard with skilled associate—check.

I moved on to the next problem. "The other thing is this wedding contract. Is there some way to do something about that?"

I explained the business about the month's betrothal and the wedding. Why couldn't we get married now? Or perhaps wait until I came back?

"Hmm," Fulla said, frowning. "I'm not sure why a month is necessary in this case, but contracts can be modified by agreement of the parties. Why don't we go and talk to Var about this?"

So baby Gimli was left in the care of Uncle Dron, his usual caretaker, while we walked back to The Mithril Mattock. I hoped Fulla could talk Var around to a more sensible arrangement.

We went up to Var's room. It was neat and tidy and there was no sign of her. None of her crimson dresses were in sight.

"Has she gone out somewhere?" Fulla asked. "Shopping, perhaps?"

I looked around with a sinking heart. "I don't know."

"Fine way for her to treat visitors," Gloin growled.

Fulla opened the wardrobe and peeked inside. "This is empty. If Var is staying here, where have her things gone?"

The innkeeper was a grumpy fellow with a nose like a potato and a big white apron around his middle. We bearded him in his private office downstairs, and he answered our questions irritably. The lady had left a few hours ago. Yes, he'd seen her leave. No, he didn't know where she had gone. And it wasn't his place to ask her, now was it?

"This is crazy," I said, pacing around the small office. "Why would she leave? Where would she go?"

Fulla turned to the innkeeper. "Did she say anything at all to you?"

"No, of course she was too important to talk to the likes of me," the innkeeper said sourly. "Just flung some coins at me and stalked out."

That didn't sound like Var to me. "What was the problem?"

"No problems! No problem at all," the innkeeper nearly shouted. "Our food here is always fresh and well-prepared. If anyone in this inn gets sick, it's nothing to do with us."

"Who was sick?" Fulla said, before I could ask.

"Her maid," the innkeeper said, as if it were obvious. "But that wasn't the fault of this inn! Whatever illness that woman had—and she certainly seemed ill, lying on that stretcher moaning and squirming under that blanket—she must have brought in with her, because it's nothing to do with us. I've told my housekeeping staff to clean the room very thoroughly, just to make sure."

Gloin looked at me, and I looked at Fulla. I said, "Var didn't have a maid."

We ran back up the stairs to the room. It was empty. I stood in the middle and turned around, looking at every corner. Spotless. Someone had already cleaned it.

Gloin sighed gustily and flung himself into a chair. "This isn't good."

The innkeeper trailed behind us. "Now what is it? What's going on? I don't want any more trouble, do you hear?"

Fulla sat down on the bed, frowning.

I kept pacing and turning. I opened the wardrobe, looked inside. Nothing. I looked around at the floor, then knelt down to peer under the bed. Not even dust. Nothing, except—a faint gleam behind one of the legs of the bed.

"Hmmm." I scrambled under the bed and swept my hand gently along the floor until I touched a small bead. It skittered away. I trapped it under my fingers and pulled it out. "Look at this."

It was one of Var's pearls, together with the pin that held it in her hair. A few strands of gold were trapped in the pin.

"Oh, that's beautiful. Is it hers?" Fulla held out her hand and I placed the bauble on her palm, nodding. She poked delicately at it. "These pins, when you wear them, are meant to stay put. So it must have been torn from her hair."

I lost my head a little bit at that point. "Speak, you," I roared picking up the innkeeper and shaking him like a rat. "What did this woman look like? Who was with her? Where did they go?"

The fellow didn't say a word, just hung there with his face turning red and his mouth open, clawing at my fingers. I shook him some more.

Fulla patted my arm patiently. "Dwalin, you're choking him. He can't say anything until you let go of his neck."

I dropped him. He lay on the floor, gasping in an overly dramatic fashion. I glared down at him. "All right. Now, talk."

The woman he'd taken for Var wore a red cloak with the hood up, so he didn't really get a good look at her face. Two male servants carried a stretcher on which her "sick maid" lay, covered up. They had left after the bill was paid.

We questioned every member of the staff. Only a few had noticed the group leaving the inn. Nobody had thought anything of it.

"AGAIN?" shouted Aunt Nott. "She's disappeared again? What is wrong with this woman?"

Gloin and Fulla sat on the sofa in Aunt Nott's offices and looked uncomfortable.

I explained to my aunt that this time, Var hadn't left by her own free will. I also filled her in on the whole business with Var's father's ring and the wizard who was after her.

My aunt listened with her eyebrows raised, then gestured over her shoulder to call Nandi to her side. She murmured a few words to him. He nodded and left.

I paced around the room. "I know Var's in trouble. But why?" I slammed my fist down on the desk's hard granite surface. "Who has done this? What am I supposed to do next?"

"We'll look into it, Dwalin," Aunt Nott said. "Now sit down before you break something."

Sitting down was the last thing I wanted to do. Sitting down was useless. I glared at my aunt. "Don't worry, I'm not going to bust up your fancy desk."

"I was thinking of your hand," she replied tartly. She turned to Gloin's wife. "Now, Fulla, what is your analysis?"

The raven-haired beauty ticked them off on her fingers. "Number one, it's possible that she chose to leave for reasons of her own."

"No," I growled. There wasn't enough room to move in this office.

She ignored me. "Two, maybe this wizard has discovered that Var is still alive and has resumed his pursuit of her."

I scrubbed my hands over my face.

"Three, it could be someone else who has kidnapped her for another reason entirely."

Gloin growled to himself, and shook his head in frustration.

Aunt Nott waved her hands in a pacifying gesture. "Well, let's see what Nandi can turn up for us. Then—Mahal damn it, what do you think this place is, the Great Hall on market day, Thorin?"

I turned to see Thorin Oakenshield entering her office. He looked mildly surprised to see us all there. "We had an appointment, Lady Nott, to discuss financing arrangements for the quest."

"Oh, that's right. Sorry about that, my boy. I mean, your highness," Aunt Nott said. "This kidnapping business has me all on edge."

Thorin looked startled, and turned to me. I told him what had happened, and his expression changed to deep concern and distress. He gripped me by the shoulder. "What are you going to do?"

Aunt Nott said quickly, "We're working on it, Thorin."

He nodded, frowning at me. I knew he was thinking that he needed me on the quest. Now we were just a week away from leaving—he was wondering whether I would desert the quest.

I shook my head. "I'm coming with you. But I need to find Var first."

"Have you asked any of the members of the company?" he asked. "They will help you. Have them do what they each do best. We can meet at the end of the day and see what we've learned."

Help—that was a great idea. Hopeful plans to search Ered Luin bloomed in my head.

"Fulla and I will help," Gloin said, standing up.

His wife brushed off her skirts. "I'll talk to Dis first. We'll work on the women."

I looked around, my heart filled with gratitude. When I needed anything, these were the people who were by my side. For the first time since I picked up that discarded pearl, I felt sure I'd get Var back. "Thank you all."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I kept Var's pearl as we searched throughout the day. When the bleak, hopeless thoughts crowded in, I would reach into my pocket and touch its smooth, cool roundness. It helped.

Aunt Nott had taken over the organization of the search. We decided to start with the places Var knew or people she'd met: The inn, the weaver she'd bought the fabric from, the women who had stood beside Var at the entrance to Thorin's Hall.

No one had seen her.

"What about Lady Ran?" I asked my aunt as I paced back and forth in her office at the Goldsmith's Guild.

"What about her?" Aunt Nott demanded. "Those two don't know each other at all. No reason why Var would go to Ran, if she were running away."

I shook my head. "No, I mean, what if Lady Ran had something to do with Var's disappearance."

"Don't be ridiculous. Ran is odd, I grant you, but nothing to worry about. I've worked with her for years." Aunt Nott waved her hand. "Dwalin, I'm not going to waste my guards' time harassing her. If you want to talk to Ran, you're on your own."

Waste of time or not, I had to explore every possibility. So I went by myself to Lady Ran's big, rambling house down the street from Aunt Nott. My aunt's guards told me she occupied the place alone, except for her servants.

That was strange. Most dwarves live with their relatives—or at least, most male dwarves live with their female relatives, just like I did with Aunt Nott. When you're out and about for most of your life, traveling or working or fighting, there's not much sense in having your own house that's empty all the time. So you stay with a family member – usually a female family member, because dwarf women are the ones with the houses. Since there are lots of male dwarves, and we all need somewhere to stay from time to time, a dwarven household is typically a busy place. My male cousins and uncles were always coming and going in Aunt Nott's house.

When I pounded on the door to Lady Ran's house, the sound bounced back to me in a booming echo. Who lived like that, all alone? A sour-looking servant poked his head out. He nodded and led me past two guard-dwarves into a large, chilly room that looked like an office in a counting-house—big drawers that probably held files, a big rectangular marble table, and one big throne-like chair behind the table.

Time passed. I'd looked at everything there was to look at, even opened a few drawers that were not locked, and was on the point of giving up when Lady Ran finally came in. She looked different than usual, her hair braided with dark purple ribbons and her dress laced up tight around the middle. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes glittered a little.

She smiled at me—a triumphant smile, like she'd won a prize. "Dwalin."

That was definitely strange, even from her. I folded my arms across my chest and gave her my most serious look. "Sorry to bother you, Lady Ran, but I wondered if you might have seen my betrothed Var recently. Remember her? You met her in Aunt—I mean, Lady Nott's office."

Lady Ran came closer, trailing the fingers of one hand along the marble surface of the table while she stroked her straggly beard with her other hand. She stopped just in front of me, and looked up into my face.

"Why would you want to ask me about someone I hardly know?" She smiled up at me and blinked a couple of times. "Could it be that you have another reason for coming to see me?"

"No," I replied. "But Var is gone, and I hoped you might have seen her, or could tell me something about what happened to her."

"Oh, you poor man. You poor, poor man." She bit her lip and looked down, then turned away from me. After a moment, she said, "Yes, I saw her. She was leaving Ered Luin. She was wearing traveling clothes, and had a pack on her back. I thought you—I thought you and she might have quarreled, and she decided not to go through with the marriage…" She shrugged.

Var had left me. The realization hit me like a punch in the chest, driving the air out of my lungs. Ripping out my heart, leaving me hollow and stunned and too numb to feel any pain.

Gone. Just like the last time, just when I had thought that we'd finally gotten things sorted out between us, she'd had some other secret up her sleeve and she was gone. What did I really know about her anyway? She was a mystery to me, when it came down to it. I had only known her for a short while—weeks, at the most. She had lived an entire life that I knew nothing about. I had a glimpse of her dealings, with elves and spies and danger and kidnapping and murder. Why did I think I could trust her?

My attention came back to Lady Ran, who was looking up at me with her head tilted to one side. The concerned expression she wore didn't fit her face. Behind the frown I could see a look, almost of glee, lurking in her eyes. Who could I trust?

Perhaps a little test would be in order, to see if Lady Ran were trustworthy. "What about her maid?" I asked.

Lady Ran waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, her maid was with her. They left together."

Cold, icy fingers gripped the back of my neck. With an effort, I kept my voice level. "Var didn't have a maid."

Lady Ran froze, then she gave a slight laugh. "Oh, silly me. I must have just assumed that the other dwarf with her was her maid. Must have been somebody else. A lover, perhaps?"

Now I knew, with a bone-deep certainty, who was responsible for Var's disappearance. Rage washed over me. I took a step toward her. "Don't lie."

She blanched and stepped back, putting the marble table between the two of us. "She's gone! I don't know where she is," Lady Ran screamed. Her lips curled back into a snarl, and her eyes filled with tears. "What does it matter? You belong to me."

"What are you talking about?" I stared at her.

"You were promised to me! Lady Nott said that she would tell you when you got back from Dunland, but she never did." She was crying now. "You weren't supposed to run off with that—that Southern bitch!"

I was getting colder by the minute. Lady Ran was crazy, and Var had to be somewhere in this house. "Get out of my way."

Striding over to the door, I yanked it open. Lady Ran grabbed me by the arm. I tried to shake her off, but she clung to me.

"She's not here! I don't know where she is. Forget about her and stay with me," the dwarf woman babbled, but her eyes kept darting toward an inner doorway. I wrenched free of her grasp. She wailed, "No! Don't go there!"

The door led to a small staircase that wound downward. I clattered down the stairs. Behind me, I could hear Lady Ran shouting to her guards.

The narrow, twisting stone stairs led down into a huge natural cavern. This was common in dwarven houses, which are built into the living rock of the mountain. Upper rooms might be shaped by our craftsmen to take advantage of light and air, but the lower levels are often left as natural caves.

It was dark, but like most dwarves I could see well enough by the light of the torches that dotted the mostly bare space. In one corner, a large bed heaped with linens had been placed. Farther away but directly in front of me, the torchlight just barely illuminated a tangle of iron gears and chains. From the sensation of cold coming from that direction, I didn't think there was a wall there. The cavern just extended into blackness.

Opposite the bed, standing chained to the wall, was Var. She gasped when she saw me. "No! Dwalin, get out of here, now!"

"I'm not leaving without you," I growled. Grabbing a torch, I looked around for something to free Var with.

There was a small table with a pitcher of water and a glass, but no tools. I moved farther back into the cavern, toward the tangle of machinery at the edge of the light, looking for something metal to use to break the chains holding Var.

Var was swearing at me in a fierce undertone. "By Mahal's holy axe, why can't you listen to me? Get out of here, get away from that crazy woman! You fool, it's not me she wants, it's you!"

"I'll take care of her next," I muttered, still looking.

I approached the end of the cavern where the machinery was. The torch I held showed a large hook on a chain leading to a block and tackle arrangement hanging from the cavern's ceiling. Beside me was a flattish rectangular metal cage, big enough to hold a dwarf. I frowned, not sure what I was looking at.

A gust of wind made the flame of my torch flicker wildly, and I glanced around for the source of the breeze. I waved the torch around me. The light bounced off the floor where I was standing, and then suddenly vanished as the floor gave way to pure blackness. That's when I realized I was standing at the edge of a huge pit.

I stepped back, moving to put the cage between me and the giant hole in the ground. Like many dwarves, I am uncomfortable with heights. But the opposite is true as well—I'm not exactly wild about depths, either. Scooping up a small chip of rock from the floor, I pitched it into the hole and listened for the echoes that would give me a hint of how deep the pit was.

The echo was faint, and took a long time coming. Very very deep. I licked my lips and took another step back.

Lady Ran and her two guards appeared at the foot of the stairs. She smiled at Var. "Well, you have your uses after all. Took him long enough to get here, though. I wonder, is that a reflection on him—or on you?"

"You can't do this," Var said. "You must be insane."

"Oh, no," Lady Ran shook her head. "I have just come to accept the fact that subtlety is lost on certain people. It's time for a more direct approach."

"If you mean me," I said, "I don't think a direct approach is going to do any better."

"Dwalin, you underestimate me. But then, practically everyone does." She gestured to her guards. "Guard him."

The two guards pulled out their swords and started toward me. With a grim smile, I slipped my axes into my hands. I saw both men swallow hard, then set their jaws and move in closer. Their eyes looked a little wild and desperate.

I don't mean to boast, but generally speaking, Grasper and Keeper are excellent deterrents to violence. Most sensible dwarves back away when I pull them out. These two looked like typical household guards, which meant that while they had some experience as fighters, they were not always battle-hardened warriors. Furthermore, this pair were a bit too young to have seen action at Azanulbizar. So why were they so eager to face me?

"Make it easy on yourselves, lads," I advised them. "Stand down."

"They won't. They know what will happen if they listen to you, Dwalin," Lady Ran said mockingly. "Make it easy on yourself, my dear. Face it. From now on, you're mine."


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

I glared at Lady Ran. Even in the flickering torchlight that was the cavern's only illumination, I could see the tension cracking through her body. She was practically vibrating with anger and defiance. The knife in her hand glinted evilly.

She was crazy.

However, this was her dungeon, and she had four armed guards beside her. She also had my fiancé chained to the wall. I need a plan.

Deliberately, I shifted my axes so that I held both in my left hand. Then I stepped over to Var, who stood with her hands chained up on either side of her at shoulder-height.

I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. As I did, I plucked her pearl from my pocket and shoved the hairpin end of it into her blonde curls. It was a promise from me to her – I would get her out of here.

"Stop him!" Lady Ran screamed, and the guards surged forward. I slid Grasper back into my other hand and swept both axes at them. They backed up a little.

But then Lady Ran was at Var's side, and was holding a knife to her neck. "Put down the axes, Dwalin. Now."

Var's eyes were huge as the knife drew a bead of blood from her neck. Lady Ran snarled at me. I put my axes down.

Lady Ran barked an order and the guards grabbed me, one on each arm. They tied my wrists together and hauled me over toward the metal cage. I fought them until Lady Ran threatened Var again. They thrust me into the cage and then slid a metal pin into a bolt on the side, holding the top of the cage in place. The pin was attached to a long slender chain that trailed along the floor.

Once I was trapped in the cage, though, the guards backed away. They had funny looks on their faces, as if they were going to be sick.

"Don't be such fools," Lady Ran snarled. She shoved her knife into her belt and strode forward to grasp the hook dangling from the big chain that was bolted to that pulley system in the ceiling. She attached the hook to a loop on the back of the cage. Then she turned a winch, lifting the cage with me in it off the ground. The cage fell forward, so that I was held parallel and face-down.

I swung sickeningly through the air, just a few feet above the hard stone floor. I roared in terror. Lady Ran picked up the other end of the slender chain leading to the pin that held the metal cage shut.

"You know, I've learned that vague threats are of no use to anyone," Lady Ran said conversationally. "Dwarves in particular, being exceptionally stubborn, need to know exactly what the consequences of disobedience are. So let this be a lesson to you."

She pulled on the chain. The front of the cage swung open, and I crashed heavily to the ground. There wasn't even time to bring my bound hands up to brace myself with. The impact drove the air out of my lungs and I lay half-stunned and gasping against the ground. I groaned, but strangely I wasn't the only one making noises. In the background, one of Lady Ran's guards retched and gagged.

"Put him back," Lady Ran ordered. Hands grabbed me and shoved me back into that infernal cage. I struggled, but hadn't recovered my strength enough to overcome the two guards who manhandled me back into place.

I glared at Lady Ran. "Why are you doing this?"

Her eyes were wild now, and she was practically frothing at the mouth with fury. "Because you are mine. I saw you first! Lady Nott said I had to wait and see if you showed an interest in me. So I waited! But I'm not going to wait any more. You are mine."

Gasping, voice ragged, I forced out the only possible answer. "No. I'm not yours."

Her eyes filled with tears. "I'll make you mine." She turned the winch, lifting the cage again. I swung forward again, face-downwards, helpless and dangling in the air.

"You belong to me. And if I can't have you, nobody can."

She gave another order, and the guards came forward. They pushed, and the cage that I was trapped in swung out over the pit, so that I was held suspended over the abyss.

A blast of icy-cold air surged up from the hideous depths below. The light barely touched the sheer sides of the pit before it was swallowed up in darkness. I couldn't see anything in the inky void, I could only feel the vast emptiness that dropped down, down to certain death.

Of all the things that terrify me, a fear of heights comes close to the top of the list. The thought of falling through the endless dark, helpless and alone, until my body was finally shattered against the cruel and jagged rocks…

I heard a shriek and a sickening crunch. The cage wobbled terrifyingly as something heavy struck it a glancing blow before plunging down into the pit. A high-pitched wail followed the object down. It had been a body. A person. I retched helplessly inside the cage.

Then slowly, the cage was swinging back to safety. Confused shouts, a glimmer of light, and then the cage was dropped onto the stone floor. I was face-first against the sweet, sweet solid ground, and I lay there trembling.

I heard the pounding of feet running away, and then the squeak of the metal pin being worked out of the closure on the cage. Var's voice murmured softly, and then I felt the metal lifting away. Fingers wrapped around my arm, and tugged me out of the cage.

"Dwalin," Var was saying as she rolled me onto my back. My limbs refused to move. She patted my face. I blinked. My eyes weren't working properly, and she looked blurry and out of focus.

I blinked again. The dungeon room was quiet. The torches burned in their holders. Var and I were alone.

Her wrists were scraped, her tunic and hose were torn, and her hair fell in a wild torrent around her shoulders. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes, a look I recognized as the residue of battle frenzy.

I frowned at her.

"The guards ran away," she explained, correctly interpreting my expression. "I think Lady Ran had used that – cage thing on them before. It must have been how she kept them obedient."

"Lady Ran?" I asked. Just saying the name made my mouth feel foul, but I was too weak to spit.

Var sneered defiantly, her eyebrows raised. "She fell down."

Fell down. I shuddered and closed my mind to what that meant.

She brushed her hands together, and got to her feet. There was a kind of nervous tension in her still. "Come on. I'd rather not hang around this place, so if you feel up to it, let's get out of here."

I let Var help me up. She handed me Grasper and Keeper. Before I slipped them back into their harness, I noticed that Keeper had gotten stained with some blood. Glancing at Var, I decided I would have to ask her about that. But not right then.

We left the house and made our way to a small inn, a quiet and somewhat run-down establishment near the marketplace. In the room, we stripped off our clothes and climbed into the bed. I fell asleep before she had settled down beside me.

Several hours later, I woke to find Var was already awake, drinking coffee and nibbling on some kind of pastry. She climbed onto the bed beside me and put a pastry in my hand, shedding flaky bits on the sheets. "These are good. Try one."

I was surprised to find I was hungry as a bear. As I ate, Var told me what had happened. Leaving the pearl behind had been deliberate on her part—she'd hoped that I would find it and understand what it meant. She started to shake as she talked, so I wiped off my fingers and gathered her into my arms.

Var was chained to the wall, the bait meant to lure me to that hideous place. Lady Ran had been unhinged, ranting about how Var had stolen my affections. The woman had convinced herself that I would have married her, that I had been on the verge of returning her feelings until Var had come along.

"That's a lie. I never even thought about her," I protested, baffled.

Var shook her head. "I don't think she really cared what you wanted. It was all about what she wanted. I was so afraid when you came down those stairs. But you saved us."

"I doubt that," I said wryly.

"You did," Var said seriously. "You brought me that hairpin. The guards were so busy watching you and her, that they didn't notice when I got myself free. And then—"

She started shaking again, so I held her tighter. I whispered, "It's okay. Whatever you did, you had to do."

She buried her face in my shoulder and told me.

The guards had been mesmerized, watching Lady Ran dangle me over the pit. Behind them, Var picked up one of my axes. The axe was heavy and unwieldy in her hands, pulling her off-balance. She held her breath and crept forward. As she lifted the axe to strike, the blade clanged against the ground. Lady Ran began to turn. Desperately, Var swung, and the flat side of the blade connected with Lady Ran's back.

With a scream, Lady Ran lurched forward toward the abyss. Her fingers scrabbled at the axe in Var's hands, pulling Var with her toward the precipice. Var threw herself backward, still holding my axe. With a wail, Lady Ran fell into the darkness.

Lady Ran's guards took to their heels.

"And the rest, you know," Var said. She was resting with her back against my chest, her head pillowed on my shoulder.

I stroked her hair, then tilted her face up and kissed her. "My heroine."

She pulled out of my arms and twisted around to look down at me. "I'm no heroine. I'm selfish." She turned to kneel on the bed facing me. "I wanted to keep you with me."

I smiled and sat up, reaching to take her back into my arms. "Good."

She pushed me back against the pillows, then straddled my legs. Her weight felt good, her warm center sliding deliciously against my body. I plucked at the soft tunic she was wearing, hoping she would take it off, but she pushed my hands away. Taking a deep breath, she frowned down at me. "Now, you listen to me. I wanted you, because you are mine. Do you understand?"

I nodded, still smiling, but not sure where she was going with this.

She took my face in her hands, stroking my beard tenderly, then reaching up to slide her palm over the top of my head. "I wanted you because you're clever and brave. No, don't argue. You faced down a wizard. You saved my life after I drank the tamuril poison. And you saved me from Lady Ran."

I shrugged. It had all been mostly accidental, but it felt good to have her petting and admiring me.

She took my hands in hers and lifted each one to her lips, kissing the tattoos on my knuckles. "And I wanted you because you are strong. You can bend iron with your bare hands, twirl those huge axes of yours like they're weightless, and probably crush rocks with your fingers."

"Practice, mostly. Crushing rocks is a pretty useless skill," I pointed out. My breath was coming a little short, because Var was nibbling on each finger in turn. She ended with a soft bite to the side of my palm, sending an unexpected little jolt of electricity all the way to my loins.

"But you're gentle, too. When I had that nightmare, that night on the road, you held me in your arms. You didn't even know me, but you helped me when I needed it."

I closed my eyes, remembered feeling her heart flutter as she had knelt tucked against my chest. Her body had been soft, her cheek against my beard, her glorious hair tickling my lips. It seemed like that had happened so long ago. And we had come so far together since then.

Shifting her weight on my lap, Var lifted my hands and placed them on her breasts. pressed my fingers into the soft weight, and felt her nipples harden against the center of my palms.

She went on. "And I wanted you because of your fierce loyalty. When you give your heart, you give it all the way. You love Thorin, and you love your Aunt Nott—"

"Well, I don't know about Aunt Nott—"

She laughed. "Oh, sure you do."

"Why are we talking about Aunt Nott at a time like this?" I complained.

"I think we don't need to discuss her further." She let her own hands fall to my bare chest, fingers playing in the thick hair, then leaned down and kissed the spot right over my heart. Her lips trailed wetness over to my nipples, sending little shock waves of pleasure rippling across my skin. I moved my hands to her back, reaching under the tunic to lift it up over her head, leaving us both bare to the waist.

She responded by tugging at my pants, and I lifted my hips to let her pull them down and off my body. Then she came back, mouth to my chest and moving down my body.

She stopped at the hollow between my hipbone and belly, licking and tickling that sensitive spot.

I tried to lift her face away. "Okay, now let me—"

"I'm not quite done yet," she said with a wicked smile. "I'm trying to make a point here. May I continue?"

"By all means," I replied generously, and settled back as her mouth moved down my body.

She wiggled down farther between my legs, and lowered her lips to take me fully in her mouth. My humorous mood fled as waves of pleasure began to build inside me. I hissed, trying to hold back the sounds that I wanted to make. My fists clutched at the sheets as her tongue flickered over the sensitive skin. She sucked and licked, moaning deep in her throat as she teased me, reaching under to lightly raking her fingernails along my skin.

Every muscle in my body pulled tight as my back arched up, pushing myself deeper into her wet, welcoming mouth. Then suddenly she lifted away from me, moved up to straddle me again, and took me inside her heated core. Our bodies rocked together, friction building, until the bright hot wave of pleasure crested and crashed over. Var cried out, her body clenching tight around me, and then I felt myself tumbling down into a deep and blissful peace.

Var snuggled down beside me, her head on my shoulder. After a while she lifted her hand and stroked my beard. "And so—" She paused.

"Hmmm?" I was too relaxed to speak.

She took a deep breath. "And so that's why it's so hard for me to say goodbye to you."

"What?"

"I've got a million good reasons to want you to stay with me. To marry you and keep you safely by my side for as long as we both shall live." She sat up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "And only one reason to let you go on Thorin's stupid, suicidal quest."

I stared at her, speechless.

She glared at me, then scrambled off the bed and began picking up her clothes. "Because I love you, you big fool. Now get up, because we've got a ton of things to do."


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

"Var, you're a damned fool," shouted Aunt Nott.

Nandi, my aunt's faithful assistant, patted her shoulder. She shook off his hand and continued to rant at my beloved. "What are you going to do, stay here in Ered Luin all by yourself, until these idiots get back? If they get back at all!"

Var held her temper admirably. "No, I'm going home. I have business concerns to attend to in Gabil inbar, and I've been away too long. When Dwalin is ready," she smiled at me, and I could have sworn Mahal's forge had never glowed brighter, "he will find me there."

I nodded and took her hand in mine. I was too choked up to speak.

Nori had found us in the small and dingy inn, and summoned us to my aunt's offices. The star-haired thief stood beside me now, twitchy and eyes darting around. It seemed that Madam Virtue had taken a shine to him, but he insisted that he and his brothers were irrevocably committed to the Quest for Erebor.

When we walked into the Guildhall offices, we discovered that Var and I weren't the only people at this meeting. Apparently, the purpose of the gathering was to give my aunt a chance to yell at all the members of the Line of Durin, jointly and severally.

Thorin stood to one side, brow furrowed, looking oddly uncertain. His sister Dis had her arms folded tightly to her chest and her lips pressed together. Her sons, Fili and Kili, stood behind her looking as eager as only young dwarves can look.

On the divan, Gloin looked determined, but beside him, his wife Fulla tapped her foot impatiently. Oin, whose ear-trumpet was stowed in his pocket so that he was unable to hear anything, sat in a comfortable chair smiling faintly at one and all.

Aunt Nott rounded on Dis. "And what have you to say for yourself, young woman? Letting your sons go off with their crazy uncle?"

Dis' cobalt eyes flashed magnificently. She was nearly as tall as her brother, and shared his dramatic coloring. She lifted her chin and planted her hands on her hips.

"My sons are the Heirs of Durin, after my brother. Now it is a hollow title, an empty phrase. If they can reclaim the kingdom our people have lost, then they will have earned the right to call themselves kings." Then she frowned down at the ground, and sighed heavily. "They are my treasure, and it is not easy to let them go."

"Bah," said Aunt Nott.

"We have a wizard—" Thorin began.

"Yes, yes, I know." Aunt Nott interrupted. She got to her feet and paced back and forth behind her desk. "But I'm worried about you all."

Thorin nodded. I could tell from his expression that he understood her concerns, but at this point, there wasn't anything new to say on the subject. He drew in a breath. "I'm leaving today for a meeting of all seven clans, and I'm in hopes that Dain will join us in the Quest. Having the Army of the Iron Hills at our side would be a great advantage."

"Good. That's good," Aunt Nott said. She sat back down.

Thorin continued. "So I will be meeting the rest of the company at the home of Gandalf's burglar, in the Shire. Dwalin, will you accompany me to the clan meeting?"

I shook my head, and put my arm around Var. "I can't. I'm escorting Var back to Gabil inbar. But I'll join you in the Shire."

Var smiled at me. We would have to make good time on our trip, I knew. But I wasn't going to leave her to journey all that way alone. It wasn't that I didn't trust Aunt Nott's guards for the caravan of goods she would be traveling with, but…at least this way, we'd have a few more days to ourselves.

"Sweet hammer of Mahal, Thorin, you can't travel all that distance by yourself," Aunt Nott said. "You have the worst sense of direction! You'll end up in Harad, for pity's sake."

"I'll accompany you, Uncle," said Fili, stepping forward.

"Me too," said Kili.

"No," said their mother, Dis. "I'm not letting either of you leave any earlier than you have to."

"Aw, mom." Fili scuffed his boot against the floor, and Kili did too.

Thorin raised his hand, cutting off further discussion. "I'm going to the clan meeting. I'm going alone, and I will meet the rest of you in Bag End on the appointed day. I will not," he glared at Aunt Nott, "get lost."

So it was arranged. Var and I traveled with a caravan heading South, taking her home to the business she had left behind when she and her father had set out to destroy Gamil's ring. Her father hadn't even made it out of Dunland, killed by Dunlendings who had probably been hired to kill them both and steal back the ring. But they'd tried to be clever, thinking to make a little extra profit on the side by selling Var instead of killing her outright.

But all that was behind us now. And the ring had been unmade, just as Var's father had wanted. Var would return to take back control of the business she and her father had run.

As we rode our ponies side by side through an open field, Var sighed. "I've been away so long. Sorting out the backlog of business is going to be a nightmare."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't you have someone minding your affairs?"

"Yes, of course we do. My father and I had planned on being out of touch for a while. But still, it's not the same."

"What will happen when I come back for you?"

She smiled at me. "We'll make our plans then." She reached out her hand to me, and I took it.

We got to Gabil inbar more quickly than I thought possible, but I couldn't stay with Var more than a night. As it was, I'd have to travel night and day to make it back to the Shire in time.

We made the best of our last night together. That morning, I forced myself to get dressed, to pack my gear, to check that I had everything I needed: Weapons, tools, food, blanket. At the door, I sighed and turned to Var.

She reached up and laid both her hands on my cheeks, smoothing down the edges of my beard with her thumbs. "I know love doesn't mean being inseparable. It just means that we still love one another, even when we're apart." Her voice was husky and there were tears in her eyes.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak at first. Clearing my throat, I said, "I love you."

"Keep this. Think of me." She held out one of her pearl hairpins.

I smiled as I took the pearl, admiring its lustrous beauty and feeling its smooth comforting roundness against my fingers. I'd often held and looked at it while I was searching for Var in Ered Luin. Then, clever girl, she'd used that hairpin to pick the locks on the manacles that held her in Lady Ran's dungeon. It wasn't just pretty to look at, but full of all sorts of hidden qualities. "It reminds me of you."

She reached up and kissed me softly. "Good. I hope it tells you never to give up. You have a reason to keep going—so that you can come back to me."

"I will."

I rode away fast as I could, knowing that she was watching me until I disappeared from view. I didn't turn around. I wouldn't have been able to see much if I had, because my vision was all blurry.

My pony, Harley, was not happy with me on that part of the trip. We traveled as far and as fast as we could, only stopping when we had to in order to conserve Harley's strength. I ate dwarven waybread, _cram_, in the saddle, when I ate at all. No sense in wasting time cooking.

Besides, if I remembered correctly, Gandalf had made it very clear to all of us dwarves that Hobbits were generous hosts and fantastic cooks. They were famed for their love of food and cooking, and we could count on plenty to eat once we'd arrived. By the time I reached the Shire, I was famished.

I found the burglar's house, Bag End, fairly easily. It was on a pretty little hill overlooking a typical hobbit settlement. After seeing Harley well-provided-for in a tidy stable at the local inn, I walked up the hill and knocked on the door as dusk fell.

The door opened. A disheveled hobbit in a dressing-gown and slippers goggled at me, his jaw slack in surprise.

I bowed. "Dwalin, at your service."

He pulled his jaw shut and re-tied his dressing-gown.

"Bilbo Baggins, at yours," he replied, still standing in the doorway in a vague and irresolute way. The delicious scent of fried lake-trout wafted to me from inside the house, and my mouth began to water.

We stood there, staring at one another. The rich smell of food was driving me crazy. Ravenous, I pushed into the small house. "Which way is it, laddie? Is it down here?"

"What?" the hobbit stammered.

"Dinner, of course," I said. "He said there'd be food, and lots of it."

THE END


End file.
